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Politics : A US National Health Care System?

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From: TimF	10/26/2009 1:43:46 PM
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...Taxpayers will be best served by insurers with sufficient market power to bargain down provider rates, but with not quite enough power to keep the savings (“rents”) for themselves. That is, we want low provider rates to translate into low premiums. Though liberals may be skeptical that this balance is achievable, it is not at odds with their objectives in principle. After all, one of the arguments for the public option is that it would be a large insurer with commensurately large negotiating power but would use that power on the behalf of consumers. How to balance the power of insurers and providers is far from simple. Many have pointed to the alleged dominant market position of insurers as a substantial source of high health care costs. However, the health economics literature supports the notion that recent increased market power of insurers does not lead toward monopolistic pricing, but rather it provides a counter-balance to the power held by hospitals and provider groups. Moreover, insurance companies are partially exempt from federal antitrust law for an important reason: so they can share rate-making data. This function actually benefits small insurers who would not otherwise have sufficient data to properly adjust premiums. Paradoxically, removing the legal cover for data sharing would harm small insurers more than large ones... theincidentaleconomist.com marginalrevolution.com

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