Why Don’t Health Insurance Markets Work Like Other Markets? Or Do They? 

Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Co-sponsored by the Antitrust and Payors, Plans, and Managed Care Practice Groups and the Healthcare Reform Educational Task Force (a joint endeavor of the Healthcare Liability and Litigation; Hospitals and Health Systems; In-House Counsel; Medical Staff, Credentialing, and Peer Review; Payors, Plans, and Managed Care; Physician Organizations; Regulation, Accreditation, and Payment; and Teaching Hospitals and Academic Medical Centers Practice Groups)

Please note: This webinar has been rescheduled from Tuesday, February 9, to Tuesday, April 27.

Description

The current debate over healthcare reform focuses largely on changes in health insurance markets—markets that are filled with unusual incentives, regulatory restrictions, and sources of possible market failures. To understand the debate and the impact of the proposed changes, it is important to understand some of the basic market forces and inherent peculiarities of health insurance services. The panelists will provide a brief, basic background on the fundamental economics of health insurance and some of the incentives that affect enrollees, providers, and the adoption of new technology by payors. Much of the program will focus on discussing the implications of the many market forces and institutions that make healthcare reform challenging and interesting, including:

• Enrollees’ incentives to withhold information about their health status;
• The response (or lack thereof) of consumers to price in health plan and healthcare markets;
• Employer-based health insurance and the impact of tax policy on health plan decisions;
• The controversial role of mandated insurance benefits;
• Government subsidies of free and below-cost healthcare services;
• The effect of reimbursement methodologies on providers;
• Health plan coverage of new technologies and its effect on rising healthcare costs; and
• The importance of competition among health insurers.

Presenters

• David A. Argue, PhD
  Corporate Vice President
  Economists Incorporated, Washington, DC
  
  
• Robert J. Town, PhD
  Associate Professor and Director, MS-HSRP&A Program
  Health Policy & Management
  School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
  
  
• Lawrence Wu, PhD
  Senior Vice President
  NERA Economic Consulting, San Francisco, CA

Moderator

• William E. Berlin, Esquire
  Shareholder
  OBER | KALER, Washington, DC