In 1956, the then governor of Michigan appointed a Study Commission on Prepaid Hospital and Medical Care Plans to examine the operation of existing prepayment plans and to make recommendations "regarding ways to achieve reductions in costs of present services, and ways to expand present coverage, and ways to extend coverage to additional people." This commission, not long after its appointment, decided that authoritative research was needed as a basis for "reasoned conclusions and constructive recommendations." It entered into an agreement with the University of Michigan to conduct such a study. This two-volume work reports the study, conducted by Walter J. McNerney, then at the University of Michigan. In a foreword, Mr. McNerney aptly described this work as, at once, a book, a series of monographs, a research manual, and a "useful blue print for action." Continuing, he says, "it mixed fact, interpretation and philosophy."
The study is divided into