The Uncertain Future of Managed Care

Abstract

The fortunes of managed care have taken a sudden downturn. Consider this: the oldest and largest and one of the most respected health maintenance organizations (HMOs), Kaiser Permanente, posted a loss of about $270 million in 1997, its first deficit in more than a half-century of operations. Informed sources predict even higher losses for 1998.Oxford Health Plans, a Connecticut-based, for-profit managed-care company with many middle- and upper-income enrollees in the New York region, saw its stock-market price peak at close to $90 a share in early 1997, only to lose over 70 percent of that value by the year's . . .