Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
Alain Einthoven is the father of managed competition. In a recent Health Affairs article, he and Laurence C. Baker look ]at managed competition in California and ask whether the standard conception of managed competition needs to be altered. Before we get to the article, we first need to ask a basic question: what is managed competition? The…
Financial incentives matter. If one had to give economists (and health economists as well) a slogan, this would be it. In 2006, the Netherlands instituted a form of managed competition. According to Van Dijk et al (2012) “Before 2006, inhabitants had either compulsory social (sickness fund, 62%) or voluntarily private (36%) health insurance depending, among others, on income (below a gross…
In the Netherlands, the Health Insurance Act of 2006 mandates that all individuals have health insurance. Health insurance is provided by the private sector and these private health insurers can charge any premium they please. The government does provide some risk-adjusted payment to the insurance companies. This means that the state gives insurance company more…