In this issue:
Obama Care has brought a classic cost-benefit question in health care to the forefront: How to improve health care while controlling costs? We present a number of analyses, first looking at whether increased insurance coverage compensates for potential losses. Then we discuss several ways a more classic antitrust conflict—preserving competition vs. encouraging efficiency—is playing out. Our articles analyze possible changes in the traditional ways to pay for health care, discuss a denied merger despite acknowledging the combination would improve health care quality, and debate possible additional regulations and even price controls. And we note the conflict is not just between government and private entities—but also between different federal government agencies, and state and federal authorities. Resolution looks to be very tough.
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Cost-Benefit Analyses for Health Care
Health Care Benefits vs. Costs: Are We Making the Right Choices?
In fact the two goals—reducing health care costs and increasing insurance coverage—are generally incompatible. Rosa Abrantes-Metz (Global Economics Group) & Albert Metz (Moody’s).
Patient Outcomes vs. Competition: Squaring the Circle in FTC v. St. Lukes
The way that we as a society pay for health care serves to reinforce the traditional antitrust approach, but if the changes envisioned by the health care reform
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