Containing cost through competition: the new wave.

The enormous increases in outlays for federal health care program beneficiaries have prompted national policy developers to look for effective means to contain health care expenditures. Past attempts to do so through Federal regulation have not worked because they were not directed at creating incentives to contain cost. In the Reagan Administration, the most talked-about alternative is a comprehensive reform of health care financing and delivery through instituting a competitive model. The plan will be discussed extensively in the 97th Congress; the outcome of that debate can have profound effects on the methods by which Americans receive and pay for health services.