HMOs, competition, and the politics of minimum benefits.

Attempts to inject "competition" into the market for health-care financing have been inextricably linked to the fate of the HMO movement. But the track record of HMOs to date offers no compelling evidence that all other types of competitors should be barred from the race, and a new Congress is likely to be more critical of optimal "second-best" solutions than were its recent predecessors. An accommodation to some constraints may be the best public protection against the "minimum benefit" politics of special interests.