IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ecorec/v82y2006i259p460-468.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Insurance and Monopoly Power in a Mixed Private/Public Hospital System

Author

Listed:
  • DONALD J. WRIGHT

Abstract

Consumers, when ill, often have the choice of being treated for free in a public hospital or at a positive price in a private hospital. To compensate for the positive price, private hospitals offer a higher quality treatment. Private hospitals and doctors also have a degree of monopoly power in their pricing. In this setting, it is shown that the introduction of an insurance premium subsidy does not affect the number of consumers treated in the private hospital, rather the private hospital and the doctor respond to the subsidy by increasing the prices they charge and the quality of the private hospital experience.

Suggested Citation

  • Donald J. Wright, 2006. "Insurance and Monopoly Power in a Mixed Private/Public Hospital System," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 82(259), pages 460-468, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:ecorec:v:82:y:2006:i:259:p:460-468
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4932.2006.00359.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-4932.2006.00359.x
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1475-4932.2006.00359.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Vaithianathan, Rhema, 2006. "Health insurance and imperfect competition in the health care market," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(6), pages 1193-1202, November.
    2. Chiu, W. Henry, 1997. "Health insurance and the welfare of health care consumers," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 125-133, April.
    3. Martin Gaynor & Deborah Haas-Wilson & William B. Vogt, 2000. "Are Invisible Hands Good Hands? Moral Hazard, Competition, and the Second-Best in Health Care Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(5), pages 992-1005, October.
    4. Zeckhauser, Richard, 1970. "Medical insurance: A case study of the tradeoff between risk spreading and appropriate incentives," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 2(1), pages 10-26, March.
    5. Rhema Vaithianathan, 2002. "Will Subsidising Private Health Insurance Help the Public Health System?," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 78(242), pages 277-283, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Zhou, Wenhui & Wan, Qiang & Zhang, Ren-Qian, 2017. "Choosing among hospitals in the subsidized health insurance system of China: A sequential game approach," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 257(2), pages 568-585.
    2. Alfons Palangkaraya & Jongsay Yong & Elizabeth Webster & Peter Dawkins, 2009. "The income distributive implications of recent private health insurance policy reforms in Australia," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 10(2), pages 135-148, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Zhou, Wenhui & Wan, Qiang & Zhang, Ren-Qian, 2017. "Choosing among hospitals in the subsidized health insurance system of China: A sequential game approach," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 257(2), pages 568-585.
    2. Cremer, Helmuth & Lozachmeur, Jean-Marie, 2022. "Coinsurance vs. co-payments: Reimbursement rules for a monopolistic medical product with competitive health insurers," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    3. Bardey, David & Cremer, Helmuth & Lozachmeur, Jean-Marie, 2016. "The design of insurance coverage for medical products under imperfect competition," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 28-37.
    4. Donald J Wright, 2004. "Insurance and monopoly power in a mixed private/public hospital system, CHERE Discussion Paper No 55," Discussion Papers 55, CHERE, University of Technology, Sydney.
    5. Nell, Martin & Richter, Andreas & Schiller, Jörg, 2009. "When prices hardly matter: Incomplete insurance contracts and markets for repair goods," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(3), pages 343-354, April.
    6. Mark Agee & Zane Gates, 2013. "Lessons from Game Theory about Healthcare System Price Inflation," Applied Health Economics and Health Policy, Springer, vol. 11(1), pages 45-51, February.
    7. Run Liang & Hao Wang, 2017. "Health insurance, market power, and social welfare," International Journal of Economic Theory, The International Society for Economic Theory, vol. 13(4), pages 427-442, December.
    8. Wigger, Berthold U. & Anlauf, Markus, 2002. "Moral Hazard, Market Power, and Second Best Health Insurance," CSLE Discussion Paper Series 2002-06, Saarland University, CSLE - Center for the Study of Law and Economics.
    9. Howell, Bronwyn, 2006. "Unveiling 'Invisible Hands': Two-Sided Platforms in Health Care Markets," Working Paper Series 18936, Victoria University of Wellington, The New Zealand Institute for the Study of Competition and Regulation.
    10. Lakdawalla, Darius & Sood, Neeraj, 2013. "Health insurance as a two-part pricing contract," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 1-12.
    11. Howell, Bronwyn, 2006. "Unveiling 'Invisible Hands': Two-Sided Platforms in Health Care Markets," Working Paper Series 3841, Victoria University of Wellington, The New Zealand Institute for the Study of Competition and Regulation.
    12. Parry, Ian W.H., 2001. "On the Efficiency of Public and Private Health Care Systems: An Application to Alternative Health Policies in the United Kingdom," Discussion Papers 10822, Resources for the Future.
    13. repec:vuw:vuwscr:19063 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. repec:dau:papers:123456789/15235 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Baker, Laurence C. & Bundorf, M. Kate & Kessler, Daniel P., 2015. "Does health plan generosity enhance hospital market power?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 54-62.
    16. Chernew, Michael E. & Encinosa, William E. & Hirth, Richard A., 2000. "Optimal health insurance: the case of observable, severe illness," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(5), pages 585-609, September.
    17. Martin Gaynor & Deborah Haas-Wilson, 1999. "Change, Consolidation, and Competition in Health Care Markets," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 13(1), pages 141-164, Winter.
    18. Brigitte Dormont & Mathilde Péron, 2016. "Does Health Insurance Encourage the Rise in Medical Prices? A Test on Balance Billing in France," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(9), pages 1073-1089, September.
    19. Howell, Bronwyn, 2007. "Financial Risk in Primary Health Care Contracting: Implications for Sector Structure, Ownership and Outcomes," Working Paper Series 19063, Victoria University of Wellington, The New Zealand Institute for the Study of Competition and Regulation.
    20. Dormont, B. & Péron, M., 2015. "Does health insurance encourage the rise in medical prices?," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 15/16, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    21. Howell, Bronwyn, 2007. "Financial Risk in Primary Health Care Contracting: Implications for Sector Structure, Ownership and Outcomes," Working Paper Series 3964, Victoria University of Wellington, The New Zealand Institute for the Study of Competition and Regulation.
    22. repec:vuw:vuwscr:18936 is not listed on IDEAS
    23. Vaithianathan, Rhema, 2006. "Health insurance and imperfect competition in the health care market," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(6), pages 1193-1202, November.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ecorec:v:82:y:2006:i:259:p:460-468. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/esausea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.