Survival of the fittest. The 'competition' model for health care.

Abstract

The following are excerpts from an article first published in the Health/PAC Bulletin in 1981. This lengthy analysis was written in response to various proposals made during the late 1970s and early 1980s to unfetter the invisible hand of free-market competition in order to solve the nation's health care "crisis." Twelve years later...the health care "crisis" is considerably more grave, and it has become even more popular to wave the "invisible" hand in the hope it will go away. Twelve years later, the objections Sigelman raises have not gone away either, and his conclusions--that in the face of the competition model, the need is greater than ever for consumers to organize to compel providers to deliver services that respond to the needs of the community--is, unfortunately, prophetic.