The Fund supports several networks of state health policymakers to help identify, inspire, and inform policy leaders.
The Fund identifies and shares policy ideas and analysis on topics important to state health policymakers, particularly on issues related to state leadership, primary care, aging, and health care costs.
Keep up with news and updates from the Milbank Memorial Fund. And read the latest blogs from our thought leaders, including Fund President Christopher F. Koller.
The Fund publishes The Milbank Quarterly, as well as reports, issues briefs, and case studies on topics important to health policy leaders.
The Milbank Memorial Fund is an endowed operating foundation that aims to improve population health by connecting leaders and decision makers with the best available evidence and experience. It does this work by:
The Milbank Memorial Fund is an endowed operating foundation that publishes The Milbank Quarterly, commissions projects, and convenes state health policy decision makers on issues they identify as important to population health.
December 1980 (Volume 58)
Harold S. Luft
Back to The Milbank Quarterly
HMOs contract to provide physician and hospital services to enrolled populations in return for fixed periodic payments. Total costs for HMO members are shown to be lower than for those enrolled in conventional insurance plans. But the explanation for this and related differences cannot be attributed solely to matters of efficiency, quality, or even consumer self-selection or physician satisfaction. Although public policy assumes that HMOs will encourage beneficial competitive responses by traditional health care providers, too little is known to predict the nature and extent of such probabilities.
Author(s): Harold S. Luft
Download the Article
Read on JSTOR
Volume 58, Issue 4 (pages 501–536) Published in 1980