This form of medical financing also resulted in the growth of a huge industry in health technology, pharmaceuticals, surgical technology, and related ancillary services. Although often criticized for accumulating unprecedented profits, this business sector, according to Roemer and Roemer (1982), has contributed to a significantly higher quality of life for the general public over the past three-quarters of a century, and was almost completely lacking in the government medicine of the Former Soviet Union (Townsend, 1981). Stimulating a self-financing health care industry was a major factor in health sector privatization proposed by the first health insurance legislation of the Russian Federation.