RAZING A TOWER-OF-BABEL - A TAXONOMY FOR MANAGED CARE AND HEALTH-INSURANCE PLANS

To many, the U.S. health care system has become an unintelligible alph abet soup of three-letter health plans. There is little agreement abou t which characteristics distinguish one type of plan from another. In this article we chip away at what has become a Tower of Babel of manag ed care and health insurance terminology. We review past and current t rends in the market for nontraditional health benefit plans and propos e a taxonomy, or system of classification, that will aid in understand ing how managed care plans differ from conventional health insurance a nd from one another. Also included is a comprehensive glossary of term s.