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George D. Lundberg, MD

JAMA. 1985;254(18):2638-2639.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

The medical profession is now undergoing tumultuous and rapid changes that are largely economic. Drastic changes are occurring in payment schemes for hospital care, followed by numerous proposals for changing the method of paying physicians.

In earliest days, doctors performed their healing services without pay. But ordinary man must eat to live, so the practice of doctoring became compensable. In his article "XXII. Medical Practice: Making a Living," Lester King describes 19th-century methods of compensating physicians in the United States.¹

Health insurance does not stem from antiquity; its beginnings may be traced to 18th- or 19th-century Germany. Before health insurance, patients who were able to do so paid doctors out of their pockets and often paid on installment plans. Those who could not pay were charity cases. This system worked well for routine care but not so well when it came to large expenses. So a system of health . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Footnotes
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