The last ten years have seen the introduction of price shopping into medical markets which were previously dominated by price insensitive consumers. Price shopping has been facilitated by the advent of the Preferred Provider Organization (PPO), which coordinates the demand of a large number of...

Patient cost-sharing for primary care and prescription drugs is designed to reduce the prevalence of moral hazard in utilization. Yet the success of this strategy depends on two factors: the elasticity of demand for those medical goods, and the risk of downstream hospitalizations by reducing...