Competition in Health Insurance Markets

Martin Gaynor and Amanda Starc

No 34928, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: The United States relies primarily on private health insurance markets, yet these markets are highly concentrated and becoming more so over time. We document concentration across commercial, Medicare Advantage, and Medicaid markets. We then examine how asymmetric information—particularly adverse selection—interacts with market power to shape premiums, plan design, and consumer welfare. Empirical evidence confirms that insurer consolidation raises premiums. We discuss how antitrust enforcement, risk adjustment, regulation, and informational interventions shape competition and consumer welfare in these markets.

JEL-codes: I11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com, nep-hea and nep-ind
Note: EH IO
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w34928.pdf (application/pdf)
Access to the full text is generally limited to series subscribers, however if the top level domain of the client browser is in a developing country or transition economy free access is provided. More information about subscriptions and free access is available at http://www.nber.org/wwphelp.html. Free access is also available to older working papers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34928

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w34928
The price is Paper copy available by mail.

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().