Abstract

KIE: The authors predict that the Diagnosis Related Group (DRG) system for prospective reimbursement of hospitals under Medicare, also used by several state Medicaid programs, will almost certainly be adopted in some version by private health insurers. Their thesis is that such a drastic alteration in health care economics will reduce access to care, compromise its quality, impede the development of new medical technologies, and accelerate the takeover of American medicine by large, for-profit corporations. Dolenc and Dougherty argue for an alternative system based on the assumption that health care is a right, not a commodity. In the interim they propose modifications in the DRG scheme to protect access to care by vulnerable groups and to subsidize non-profit hospitals by taxing for-profit ones.