The cost of burn care and the federal government's response in the 1990s.

This article attempts to predict the federal government's response to the cost of burn care in the 1990s by examining the explosive growth of health care costs in the 1980s and the impact that this had on hospitals with burn centers. The Prospective Payment System (PPS) was enacted in 1983, which limited the government's liability to hospitals by effectively capping the amount of federal dollars in the system. The inequities of the classification of burn patients by the PPS is discussed and a proposal for modification is outlined.