The welfare effects of restricted hospital choice in the US medical care market
研究美国管理式医疗保险公司限制参保人选择医院的经济后果，发现消费者在选择保险计划时显著重视医院网络带来的效用，且这种限制每年造成约10亿美元的社会福利损失。
Abstract Managed care health insurers in the USA restrict their enrollees' choice of hospitals to within specific networks. This paper considers the implications of these restrictions. A three‐step econometric model is used to predict consumer preferences over health plans conditional on the hospitals they offer. The results indicate that consumers place a positive and significant weight on their expected utility from the hospital network when choosing plans. A welfare analysis, assuming fixed prices, implies that restricting consumers' choice of hospitals leads to a loss to society of approximately $1 billion per year across the 43 US markets considered. This figure may be outweighed by the price reductions generated by the restriction. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.