The term “medical-industrial complex” borrows its name from “military-industrial complex,” a name used in the farewell address of President Dwight D. Eisenhower on January 17, 1961. “The medical-industrial complex,” by H.B. Meyers, was published in the January 1970 edition of Fortune magazine. “The chief beneficiaries of these programs have been the big pharmaceutical companies, the insurance companies like Blue Cross, and the hospital-supply companies — the medical- industrial complex” was published in New York magazine in 1971.
 
Dr. Arnold S. Relman (1923-2014) further popularized the “medical-industrial complex” term when he wrote about it in the New England Journal of Medicine in October 1980. 
         
     
Wikipedia: Military-industrial complex
The military–industrial complex, or military–industrial–congressional complex, comprises the policy and monetary relationships which exist between legislators, national armed forces, and the arms industry that supports them. These relationships include political contributions, political approval for military spending, lobbying to support bureaucracies, and oversight of the industry. It is a type of iron triangle. The term is most often used in reference to the system behind the military of the United States, where it gained popularity after its use in the farewell address of President Dwight D. Eisenhower on January 17, 1961, though the term is applicable to any country with a similarly developed infrastructure.
 
The term is sometimes used more broadly to include the entire network of contracts and flows of money and resources among individuals as well as corporations and institutions of the defense contractors, The Pentagon, the Congress and executive branch. A parallel system is that of the military–industrial–media complex, along with the more distant politico-media complex and prison–industrial complex.
 
Wikipedia: Arnold S. Relman
Arnold Seymour Relman (June 17, 1923 – June 17, 2014) was an American professor of medicine and social medicine from New York City, New York (born in Queens). He was professor emeritus at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts. He was also editor of the New England Journal of Medicine from 1977 to 1991 and wrote extensively on medical publishing and reform of the U.S. health care system.
           
OCLC WorldCat record
Our ailing medical system.
Publisher: Chicago : Time, 1970, ©1969.
Edition/Format:   Book : English
Notes: Articles from the January 1970 issue of Fortune magazine.
Contents: It’s time to operate, [by the editors of Fortune].—Better care at less cost without miracles, by E.K. Faltermayer.—Change begins in the doctor’s office, by D. Cordtz.—The medical-industrial complex, by H.B. Meyers.—Hospitals need management even more than money, by J.M. Mecklin.
 
29 December 1969, Augusta (GA) Chronicle, “U.S. medical care ‘on brink of chaos’” (AP), pg. A2, cols. 2-4:
NEW YORK (AP)—American medical care, hampered by chronic shortages of personnel and facilities, pressured by increasing demand and experiencing soaring costs, “stands on the brink of chaos,” Fortune magazine says in its current issue.
(...)
Other articles in the issue study the rapidly expanding medical-industrial complex which shared an estimated $63 billion spent on health care in 1968, and the growing need for skilled management in the nation’s over burdened hospitals.
   
Google Books
5 January 1970 New York magazine, pg. 3 ad:
Hospitals, doctors, medical insurance, and the growing medical-industrial complex all contribute to a $63 billion industry in desperate need of a thorough fiscal check-up and deep analysis.
FORTUNE
 
Google Books
19 July 1971, New York magazine, pg. 46, col. 2:
The chief beneficiaries of these programs have been the big pharmaceutical companies, the insurance companies like Blue Cross, and the hospital-supply companies — the medical- industrial complex
 
OCLC WorldCat record
MEDICAL/INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX
Author: W K C Morgan
Edition/Format: Article Article : English
Publication: The Lancet, v303 n7847 (197401): 96
Database: CrossRef
 
OCLC WorldCat record
There’s gold in them thar pills : an inquiry into the medical-industrial complex
Author: Alan Klass
Publisher: Harmondsworth ; Baltimore : Penguin, 1975.
Series: A Penguin special
Edition/Format:   Book : English
 
OCLC WorldCat record
From “pressure group politics” to “medical-industrial complex:” the development of approaches to the politics of health.
Author: GR Weller
Edition/Format: Article Article : English
Publication: Journal of health politics, policy and law, 1977 Winter; 1(4): 445-70
Database: From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.
 
OCLC WorldCat record
On the Medical-Industrial Complex
Author: John B McKinlay
Edition/Format: Article Article
Publication: Monthly Review, v30 n5 (19781001): 38
Database: CrossRef
 
23 October 1980, Augusta (GA) Chronicle, “Medical journal editor criticizes money-making health businesses,” pg. 10A, col. 1:
BOSTON (AP)—The explosive growth of private clinics, hospitals and other profit-making medical services over the past decade poses “potentially troubling implications” for the American health system and could make illness even more expensive, the editor of the New England Journal of Medicine says.
 
Writing in today’s edition of the journal, Dr. Arnold S. Relman says the emergence of this “medical-industrial complex,” a $40 billion-a-year array of money-making health businesses, has been virtually unnoticed by all but investors.
 
“The medical-industrial complex is an unprecedented phenomenon woith broad and potentially troubling implications for the future of our medical care systems,” he wrote.
 
OCLC WorldCat record
The new medical-industrial complex.
Edition/Format: Article Article : English
Publication: The New England journal of medicine, 1981 Jan 22; 304(4): 231-3
Database: From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine
 
New York (NY) Times
Dr. Arnold Relman, Medical Editor and Health System Critic, Dies at 91
By DOUGLAS MARTIN JUNE 21, 2014
Dr. Arnold S. Relman, who abandoned the study of philosophy to rise to the top of the medical profession as a researcher, administrator and longtime editor of The New England Journal of Medicine, which became a platform for his early and influential attacks on the profit-driven health care system, died at his home in Cambridge, Mass., on Tuesday, his 91st birthday.
(...)
In a provocative essay in the New England journal on Oct. 23, 1980, Dr. Relman, the editor in chief, issued the clarion call that would resound through his career, assailing the American health care system as caring more about making money than curing the sick. He called it a “new medical-industrial complex” — a deliberate analogy to President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s warning about a “military-industrial complex.”
   
Forbes.com
6/22/2014 @ 10:13PM
A Tribute To Healthcare’s First Transparent Pricing Pioneer
By Dan Munro
Dr. Arnold “Bud” Relman passed away last Tuesday — on his 91st birthday. As the former Editor-in-Chief (1977 to 1991) of the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, he was a pioneering and dominant voice against the wildly profitable “medical industrial complex” — a phrase he tweaked (in 1980) based on President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s ominous warning of a “military industrial complex.”
 
While we’ve become accustomed to the new shock-and-awe of healthcare pricing transparency, in many ways it was Dr. Relman who opened our collective thinking on the economical and ethical dilemma of a healthcare system optimized for revenue and profits — not safety and quality.