Managed care and monopoly power : the antitrust challenge /

Haas-Wilson (Smith College) carefully examines the appropriate role for government intervention in the rapidly evolving health care markets. Her fundamental conclusion is that competitive health care markets yield generally positive outcomes and that government policy should rely on antitrust enforcement to create and preserve such competitive markets. The analysis employs an industrial organization framework and considers structural aspects of the market including its scope (i.e., market definition), entry barriers, and the effects of both horizontal and vertical integration. The work begins with a comprehensive review of how the market--and the role of government in shaping that market--has changed, along with an accessible exploration of the positive and negative outcomes attributable to competitive health care markets. Health care markets incorporate a variety of participants, most significantly physicians, hospitals, and insurers, and Haas-Wilson considers the role of each, as well as their interactions. While she emphasizes the centrality of economic analysis in diagnosing and treating problems that arise in health care markets, her inclusion of legal and health services approaches enriches her analysis and broadens the set of readers this work will interest. ^BSumming Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduate through professional collections. E. Magenheim Swarthmore College