C. Everett Koop took office as U.S. Surgeon General in November 1981, after several years of high inflation and rapidly rising health care costs in the late 1970s, and in the midst of recession in the early 1980s. In this speech to the Chicago Medical Society, Koop warned about the effects of inflation and recession on the financial stability of the U.S. health care system. He addressed efforts by President Ronald Reagan to reign in rising health care costs, and to shift some public health responsibilities, such as maternal and child health programs, from the federal government to the states in the form of block grants under Reagan's "New Federalism" initiative. Koop discussed the ways in which this shift would likely affect the medical profession. Finally, he discusses federal support of biomedical and behavioral research in a time of recession and budget pressures.
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