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Physician Payments Under Health Care Reform

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Abstract

This study assesses the impact of major health insurance reform in Massachusetts on the prices of services paid to physicians in the privately insured market. We estimate that the reform caused physician payments to increase at least 10.8 percentage points. This impact occurred while the legislation was materializing but before the final compromised version of the reform was enacted in April 2006. This finding is consistent with prices being set in a forward-looking manner, in anticipation of the reform. Overall, one-sixth of physician service price growth in Massachusetts between 2003 and 2010 was directly attributable to the insurance reform.

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  • Abe Dunn & Adam Hale Shapiro, 2013. "Physician Payments Under Health Care Reform," Working Paper Series 2013-36, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
  • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedfwp:2013-36
    DOI: 10.24148/wp2013-36
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    1. Method of the month: Permutation tests
      by Sam Watson in The Academic Health Economists' Blog on 2019-02-20 09:00:22

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    Cited by:

    1. Trish, Erin E. & Herring, Bradley J., 2015. "How do health insurer market concentration and bargaining power with hospitals affect health insurance premiums?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 104-114.
    2. Abe Dunn & Adam Hale Shapiro, 2019. "Does Medicare Part D Save Lives?," American Journal of Health Economics, MIT Press, vol. 5(1), pages 126-164, Winter.
    3. Jeffrey Clemens & Joshua D. Gottlieb & Adam Hale Shapiro, 2016. "Medicare payment cuts continue to restrain inflation," FRBSF Economic Letter, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    4. Abe Dunn & Adam Hale Shapiro, 2018. "Physician Competition and the Provision of Care: Evidence from Heart Attacks," American Journal of Health Economics, MIT Press, vol. 4(2), pages 226-261, Spring.
    5. Adam Hale Shapiro, 2015. "Did Massachusetts health-care reform affect prices?," FRBSF Economic Letter, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Health care reform;

    JEL classification:

    • I11 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Analysis of Health Care Markets
    • L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms
    • L78 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Primary Products and Construction - - - Government Policy

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