6th Biennial Conference of the American Society of Health Economists

June 12 - 15, 2016

Private Plans Competing in Publicly-Subsidized Settings: Impacts on Premiums, Provider Prices, and Quantities

US policy has increasingly embraced the use of private managed care insurers to deliver publicly funded health benefits. This model of delivery is motivated by the notion that managed care plans can more efficiently deliver care and/or better constrain healthcare spending growth than single payer fee-for-service. This session presents three papers with new evidence on the functioning of private managed care plans in competitive settings where plan premiums are fully or partially subsidized by the government. The three papers examine how private plans set premiums, influence provider prices, and constrain or incentivize utilization across three settings: Medicare, Medicaid, and the ACA's Marketplaces.