The Early History of Regulated Health Care

[Editor’s Note: This Q & A with Dr. Michel Accad, M.D. on the economic history of modern medicine covers the “pre-Flexner era” to the Great Depression. Part 2 will feature the period from the the Great Depression to today.]

Q: What is the starting point in the history of the American health care system?

A: The American health care system was born in the 1910s out of the so-called “Flexnerian reform” in medical education and the resulting licensing laws.