Dr. Arnold Relman, longtime observer of the U.S. healthcare system and editor emeritus of the New England Journal of Medicine, proposes two major reforms: First, private insurance companies should leave the healthcare field, and second, physicians should organize into multispecialty practices.

His proposals, just published in BMJ, grow out of his alarmed observation — some 30 years ago in the NEJM — of the rise of the “new medical-industrial complex.”

Links:

BMJ essay (free abstract)

NEJM 1980 article (free abstract)