The Role of Markets and Competition in Health Care Reform Initiatives to Improve Efficiency and Enhance Access to Care

There is near unanimous agreement that the lack of universal access to health care services or insurance coverage is one of the principal shortcomings of the U.S. health system, relative to health systems in other high-income developed countries. Lack of universal access generally is believed to be the most significant contributor to the underperformance of the U.S. system in terms of broad population-health measures, such as life-expectancy at birth. A thorough understanding of the causes and consequences of the lack of insurance in the U.S. is required to develop effective health system reforms to ameliorate this shortcoming. Similarly, an appreciation of the strengths and limitations of reforms focused on centralized governmental control or decentralized market coordination as means to improve access is needed to develop consensus on specific reform proposals.

The Role of Markets and Competition in Health Care Reform Initiatives to Improve Efficiency and Enhance Access to Care Academic Article