This paper examines a model of competition between two types of health insurers: Managed Care Organizations (MCOs) and “Conventional Insurers." MCOs vertically integrate health care providers and pay them at a competitive price, while conventional insurers work as indemnity plans and pay the...

This paper examines the effect of HMO market development on hospital utilization in short term general hospitals in the U.S. between 1985 and 1993. HMO penetration does not explain the majority or even a substantial minority of the variation in hospital utilization. Among seven measures of...

Recent healthcare reforms have sought to increase efficiency by introducing managed care (MC) as an alternative to conventional care. This article proposes an institutional change designed to let German consumers choose between the two settings through directing payments from the Federal Health...