Bøger af Mark V. Pauly

Medical savings accounts (MSAs), an alternative to conventional health insurance, are designed to offer individuals the opportunity to save money while providing greater economic efficiency in the medical care sector. However, this study argues that MSAs are unlikely to lead to efficient spending.

To find more information about Rowman and Littlefield titles, please visit www.rowmanlittlefield.com.

The authors offer principles for reform designed to encourage equity, efficiency, and accountability in all publicly funded health care programs.

The authors chronicle changes in U.S. attitudes about health care and consider policy trade-offs and problems of a tax credit/voucher system to finance health insurance.

This study analyzes the effects of a variety of forms of tax credits, especially for workers whose incomes place them above the poverty line but below the median family income.

This book examines the behavior of individuals at risk and insurance industry decision makers involved in selling, buying and regulation. It compares their actions to those predicted by benchmark models of choice derived from classical economic theory. Where actual choices stray from predictions, the behavior is considered to be anomalous. Howard C. Kunreuther, Mark Pauly and Stacey McMorrow attempt to understand why these anomalies occur, in many cases using insights from behavioral economics. The authors then consider if and how such behavioral anomalies could be modified to improve individual and social welfare. This book describes situations in which both public policy and the insurance industry's collective posture need to change. This may require incentives, rules and institutions to help reduce both inefficient and anomalous behavior, thereby encouraging behavior that will improve individual and social welfare.

Evidence suggests that cost-effective preventive measures are sometimes rewarded by insurers in ways that could change their clients' behavior. These examples reveal that insurance activities are not always in the best interest of individuals at risk. This book discusses such behavior with the intent of categorizing these insurance "anomalies".

Preface - Notes on the Contributors - Introduction; J.Finsinger and M.V.Pauly - GREAT BRITAIN - Regulation of the UK Insurance Industry; J.Tapp - UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - Regulation and Quality Competition in the US Insurance Industry; M.Pauly, H.Kunreuther and P.Kleindorfer - GERMANY - A State Controlled Market: The German Case; J.Finsinger - SWEDEN - The Regulation of the Swedish Insurance Industry; K.Skogh - SWITZERLAND - Insurance Regulation in Switzerland: An Outline with Special Reference to Life and Motor Car Liability Insurance; C.B.Blankart and F.Schneider - Regulation Induced Price Instability in Swiss Motor Car Liability Insurance; C.B.Blankart and J.Finsinger - FRANCE - The French Automobile and Life Insurance Markets; J.Finsinger and R.Waldmann - The French Insurance Market; J-F.Outreville - CANADA - The Economics of Life Insurance Regulation; G.F.Mathewson and R.A.Winter - Descriptive Evidence on the Canadian Insurance Industry; G.F.Mathewson and R.A.Winter - Index

A comprehensive policymaker's guide to the Medicaid program, Medicaid Everyone Can Count On offers unique insights into the complex interactions among stakeholders in Americäs state-based public health care programs. In an era of national health care reform, this volume is an invaluable resource for federal and state lawmakers and program analysts tasked with crafting policies that balance the distinct needs of taxpayers, providers, and the poor. Working from theory to practice, Thomas W. Grannemann and Mark V. Pauly develop an approach to Medicaid policy based on a keen understanding of the forces that have shaped the program. They begin by examining the program¿s intellectual foundations¿American altruism and the principles of equity, efficiency, and democracy. They then ask the question: What are the inherent strengths and weakness of the American approach to financing medical care for the poor? The answers it turns out have direct implications for how best to approach implementing health reforms that would extend eligibility, control costs, and provide better value both to program recipients and to taxpayers. Building on the theory of public choice and economic analysis, the authors offer new perspectives on the program and its flaws, including unequal benefits among the states, federal funding that is poorly matched to state needs and resources, and disparities in payment to health care providers. To correct these flaws reform initiatives need to focus on two leverage points¿federal financing and provider payment¿that control the flow of resources and influence the behavior of states and medical care providers. The authors offer suggestions for using these tools to address policy issues in areas such as eligibility, benefits, care management, provider incentives, and federal assistance to the states. At this transitional point in the program¿s history, Grannemann and Pauly provide a consistent framework for thinking about Medicaid policy, one which has many practical implications for policy

Most people are offered health insurance through their jobs, and most still take it. But increasingly large numbers of workers have jobs in which coverage is not offered or where the terms under which it is offered do not induce them to take it. There is, however, an alternative to job-based insurance in which consumers could buy health insurance in the same way as they buy other kinds of insurances: voluntarily, as individual consumers, from private insurance firms. Because many of the uninsured appear to be permanent dropouts from the employment-based system, attention has turned to developing an improved individual insurance scheme.In Health Reform without Side Effects, Mark V. Pauly provides some alternatives to the reforms currently proposed by Congress. The legislation in progress, he asserts, is far from ideal and stands a good chance of making things worse rather than better. It runs the real risk of increasing the number of uninsured, stifling innovation in health insurance at a time when it is most needed, and creating dysfunctional incentives for both consumers and insurance companies. Reform that uses rather than abuses market forces, says the author, would be preferable.Pauly explains that the optimal government intervention provides appropriate subsidies to those who need them, a basic but limited regulatory framework, a large number of different qualified sources of insurance--for profit and nonprofit, public and private--and then permits consumers to make their own choices.. Should additional subsidies and regulations be required, they could more easily be added when needed than withdrawn if not needed.Competitive markets have their strongest rationale in settings in which the amount of knowledge a planner has or could have is incomplete, and, the author concludes, the individual health insurance market is a prime candidate for such a setting. Although there are some serious trade-offs among different policy features, the model of open, neutral competitive markets seems best suited to making those trade-offs under our current conditions.