Market Forces and State Health Policy: Goals, Tools and Limitations. A Workshopfor State Legislators and Senior and Local Health Officials. Held in Albuquerque, New Mexico on May 19-21, 1997

摘要

State legislators and senior State and local health officials attended a 3-dayworkshop on the dynamics of a rapidly changing health care marketplace, the implications for State health policy goals, and the tools for influencing the marketplace. The workshop covered the following topics: the evolution of health care markets in the United States and the major forces transforming how health care services are delivered and financed; what States can do to assess and monitor the performance of health care markets; the kinds of resources needed to structure and guide markets effectively; the role of States in regulating health insurance, State and Federal efforts to reform health markets, and progress in structuring rules for newly energing forms of risk-bearing health care organizations; the regulation of managed health care plans including the measures taken to balance consumer protection with provider and health plan interests; the methods for determining if nonprofit health care organizations provide 'community benefits' commensurate with their tax-advantaged status; the role of States in overseeing conversions of nonprofit hospitals and health plans to for-profit corporations; and the challenges States face in addressing problems such as caring for the uninsured, educating helath professionals, and financing research.