13501. THE HEALTH CARE SYSTEM AS A SOCIAL CONTROL SYSTEM. This essay considers how the contemporary health care system and its primary actors – notably physicians and other health care providers as well as the managed care and insurance administrators – functions as a social control system. It is argued that in its capacity to function as a social control system, the health care system also has the ability to shape people’s view of health and illness and to define or redefine socially appropriate roles of health-related behaviors. 7 pages, 24 footnotes, 5 bibliographic sources.