This study summarizes what we know and do not know, in both economic theory and empirical practice, about the potential to more closely approximate competitive markets in healthcare and insurance in ways that will do more good than harm to the current dysfunctional system. The alternatives to...

End-stage renal disease (ESRD), or kidney failure, is a debilitating, costly, and increasingly common medical condition. Little is known about how different financing approaches affect ESRD outcomes and delivery of care. This paper presents results from a comparative review of 12 countries with...

The financing arrangements embodied in the Clinton health reform plan involve some important differences in the way in which public goods are usually financed. The subsidies to small, low-wage firms mandated to provide benefits distort markets in both labor and products, and offer incentives for...

Many employers in the US are investing in new programmes to improve the quality of medical care and simultaneously shifting more of the healthcare costs to their employees without understanding the implications on the amount and type of care their employees will receive. These seemingly...

Some states have implemented community rating regulations to limit the extent to which premiums in the individual health insurance market can vary with a person?s health status. Community rating and guaranteed issues laws were passed with hopes of increasing access to affordable insurance for...

This paper investigates the impact of a $1000 refundable tax credit for self-only coverage on net premiums and insurance purchases for a representative sample of potential buyers in the individual insurance market. Two methods are used to estimate the distribution of premiums: predicted premiums...

This paper traces the relationship between insurance coverage and the technology-induced shift of the locus of medical care and medical spending from the inpatient to the outpatient setting. This shift was accompanied by an increase in the extent of private insurance coverage for outpatient...

The conventional theory of optimal coinsurance rates in health insurance in the presence of moral hazard indicates that, in situations of equal risk characteristics, coinsurance should vary if the price-responsiveness or price-elasticity of demand for different medical services varies, and...

Employers must determine which sorts of healthcare insurance plans to offer employees and also set employee premiums for each plan provided. Depending on how they structure the premiums that employees pay across different healthcare insurance plans, plan sponsors alter the incentives to choose...