1970's Medicine and Health | "The Delivery of Medical Care"

Journal article

By: Sidney R. Garfield

Date: April 1970

Source: Garfield, Sidney R. "The Delivery of Medical Care." Scientific American 222, no. 4, April 1970, 15–23.

About the Author: Sidney R. Garfield, a surgeon at Contractors General Hospital in the middle of the California's Mojave Desert during the 1930s, created a health care plan in which members prepaid for access to care rather than paid a fee for each visit to a physician. In the late 1930s, he accepted an invitation from Henry Kaiser, a wealthy businessman, to help establish Kaiser Permanente, the first health maintenance organization (HMO) in the United States.

Introduction

Despite his broad reforms, Franklin D. Roosevelt (served 1933–1945), president from 1933 to 1945, did not press Congress for government-sponsored medical coverage for Americans. His successor, Harry S. Truman (served...