Prologue: Ever since Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations, economists have
lauded the benefits of free, competitive markets. Even today the basic idea underlying much …

Prologue: More than any other single figure, Alain Enthoven is responsible for establishing
and promoting the ideas that are the intellectual underpinnings of America's rapidly …

Critics of health care reform proposals that incorporate managed competition contend that it
has never been broadly implemented. However, insurance plans that combine insurance …

Lawrence D. Brown tives" and" competition." Two market approaches have received close
attention. One would manipulate consumer cost-sharing, especially deductibles and …

Prologue: Many legislative proposals to reform the health care system promote expansion of
managed care as the best current hope to control health care costs. Private employers have …

This paper addresses three issues. First, why did market competition emerge in the US
health care system? Second, once free of regulatory constraints, how is the structure of the …

The US health-care system in based on markets, but those markets do not perform as well
as they could or should. One of the major reasons for this is lack of competition. There has …

The “market forces” to which economists ascribe the ability to motivate improvement in
quality and efficiency are largely nonexistent in US health care. One thus might ask,“Could …

The purpose of this article is to reconsider the foundations of health economics as applied to
the study of competition. It shows that conclusions concerning the purported desirability of …

The 2 major problems in the health care sector are rapidly escalating costs and reduced
financial access to health care services. The increases in cost exacerbate already existing …