The Six Stages of the Healthcare Economy-Is Socialized Medicine at the Door? A Historical Review

The healthcare industry, nonexistent a century ago, is now a huge fraction of the U.S. economy and an intricate business with a multitude of legislative problems. This review article will summarize the recent history of the healthcare industry, evaluate how hospitals today make and lose money, and provide a few projections about the future of healthcare in America. The hope is that the healthcare industry will provide new incentives for physicians. A first step would be to improve prevention, which will decrease hospitalization. A second step would be to decrease the administrative workload involved in seeing patients so that physicians can see more of them without decreasing the quality of care provided. The growth in the number of elderly patients who require more and more sophisticated medical technology is an important demographic trend. This group's healthcare is government-funded; socialized medicine is inevitable if for no other reason than the needs of this group will soon be where most healthcare dollars are spent.