The plan consisted of monthly payments which assured benefits of medical and hospital care to over two thousand employees of Los Angeles County and the Department of Water and Power and their families.
The focus was on the improvement of medical care quality, rather than financial success, and many concepts in those plans built on a public health approach that encouraged prevention.
The plans included prenatal care, well-baby visits, and immunizations in standard benefit packages, with small or zero co-payments, at a time that even the hospital costs of maternity stays were often excluded from traditional insurance.
Ross–Loos Medical Group is the first HMO in the United States;[citation needed] the term "managed care" came about chiefly through the influence of U.S. President Nixon on February 17, 1971.
A street in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles bears the name Ross Loos Place.