The Fund supports several networks of state health policymakers to help identify, inspire, and inform policy leaders.
The Milbank Memorial Fund supports two state leadership programs for legislative and executive branch state government officials committed to improving population health.
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 is a nonpartisan foundation focused on improving the health of communities and entire populations.
December 1988 (Volume 66)
Quarterly Article
Brian Abel-Smith
May 18, 2022
May 11, 2022
Back to The Milbank Quarterly
Consumer-controlled health insurance groups in northern Europe in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries resembled modern American HMOs in many ways. Fierceness of competition hindered European doctors’ control of their own services, prompting them to organize physician-dominated insurance groups and to extend their power through means of licensure, boycott, and supportive government regulation. While patients thus gained the right to choose their own doctor, physicians were able to negotiate more favorable payment standards, including price discrimination by patients’ income levels. The experience may foreshadow more ruthless operation of market principles among American HMOs, and raise questions about the HMO model’s viability for Europe today.
Author(s): Brian Abel-Smith
Download the Article
Read on JSTOR
Volume 66, Issue 4 (pages 694–719) Published in 1988
