Bøger af Abe Dunn

The regulatory oversight of the private Medicare Advantage (MA) program makes the role of competition in this market unclear. This paper empirically examines the impact of competition by measuring the effects of changes in market structure on enrollment. The study examines competition in local geographic markets using county-level enrollment data from 2001-07. I find that an increase in the number of competitors results in an increase in the number of enrollees served - consistent with competition motivating firms to provide more generous benefits. Competition also results in an increase in product proliferation, which highlights a dimension of competition not previously examined. Overall, the results are similar to what one might expect in an unregulated environment, suggesting that there are benefits from competition that are not realized by regulation alone.

We study the degree to which greater physician market power via consolidation leads to higher service prices in the commercially insured medical-care market. We also examine whether these potentially higher service prices translate into di erent levels of physician service utilization. We nd that physicians in more concentrated markets charge higher service prices. However, due to the unique nature of patient cost sharing as well as the incentives of physicians, these higher prices lead to either no change or, in some cases, an expansion of services. This is in contrast to a typical market, where higher prices attributable to consolidation are thought to decrease quantity demanded."