NPR's Joanne Silberner reports that a four year study of the health of people with chronic illnesses (high blood pressure, diabetes, recent heart attack, congestive heart failure, manic depression) showed that people in HMOs and people receiving traditional fee-for-service care did about the same, EXCEPT for the elderly and the poor in HMOs, who did worse. The HMO industry says the data, collected in 1990, doesn't reflect current HMO care, and that the difference wasn't that large.
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