Regulating from the Demand Side: Public Health Insurance with Monopolistically Competitive Providers and Optional Spot Sales

Gilad Sorek and Thomas Beard

No auwp2016-06, Auburn Economics Working Paper Series from Department of Economics, Auburn University

Abstract: We study the implications of extending public-insurance coverage to an existing medical market in Salop’s spatial model of imperfect competition. In this setup a public insurer sets a price to medical providers, which must maintain their reservation pro.t from selling on the spot market directly to consumers. We show that the public insurer can manipulate this reservation profit by setting the coinsurance rate, and that setting the coinsurance rate properly yields the market first best product diversification. The results survive generalizations including moral hazard and incomplete coverage. When adding quality choice to the analysis, a minimum quality standard that is combined with a proper coinsurance rate can still support market efficiency.

Keywords: Public-Insurance; Spatial Monopolistic Competition; Market Efficiency; Regulation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com, nep-hea and nep-ias
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