Medical Industrial Complex by James Morcan

Ginzberg (1988) and others (Andrews 1995 Estes et al. 17).Īrnold Relman (1980), Harvard medical professor and editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, was the first mainstream physician to write about the medical-industrial complex, observing that the corporatization of medicine is a challenge to physician authority, autonomy, and even legitimacy for the doctors who become health care industry owners. The last function, profit, is now 'the driving force,' as health care has fully 'come into the age of capitalist production' (p.

Himmelstein and Woolhandler (1990) argue that health care facilitates profit making by (1) improving the productivity (health) of workers, (2) ideologically ensuring the social stability needed to support production and profit, and (3) providing major opportunities for investment and profit (p. Since that time, a number of authors have examined the medical-industrial complex: Navarro (1976, pp. As employed by the Ehrenreichs, the concept conveys the idea that an important (if not the primary) function of the health care system in the United States is business (that is, to make profits) with two other secondary functions, research and education. The medical-industrial complex (MIC) refers to the health industry, which is composed of the multibillion-dollar congeries of enterprises including doctors, hospitals, nursing homes, insurance companies, drug manufacturers, hospital supply and equipment companies, real estate and construction businesses, health systems consulting and accounting firms, and banks.

The concept of the medical-industrial complex was first introduced in the 1971 book, The American Health Empire (Ehrenreich and Ehrenreich 1971) by Health-PAC.

Medical Industrial Complex by James Morcan