Will Competition Plans Change Insurer-Provider Relationships

摘要

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether competition proposals are likely to provide sufficient stimuli to change existing payment relationships between insurers and providers and thereby effectuate a fundamental change in health care delivery. The choice of this issue reflects the belief that inefficiency in the health care sector is more than the problem of excess consumer demand or 'moral hazard' from overinsurance. It is believed that unless insurers change their reimbursement methods so that providers bear some financial risk for their resource decisions, the health care system is likely to retain much of its inherent inefficiency. (Copyright (c) 1983 Milbank Memorial Fund and MIT.)