At Managed Care, we’ve set our editorial calendar during the fall of the previous year. So it was more than a year ago that we decided to aim high and make  “the future of managed care” the theme of our December 2019 issue.

Managed care, as a term and an idea, has been eclipsed by value-based care.

But as the articles in this issue show, American health care—expensive, often inefficient, and sometimes wrongheaded—still needs to be managed.

And maybe now more than ever. Challenges ahead? That is an understatement.

We had no inkling in late 2018 of the irony that would ensue from our choice of topic. Because this look ahead is appearing in what has turned out to the final issue of Managed Care. After 28 years, the publication is closing.

Many people have worked extremely hard, with great skill and intelligence, to make this a much-admired, top-shelf publication. If there were time and space enough, we would name them all.

Instead, we’ll just thank you, the readers, for giving Managed Care a reason to be for the better part of three decades.