HCFO Grantee Quoted in Modern Healthcare Article on Insurance Mergers

As the new year unfolds, Bob Herman of Modern Healthcare [1] highlights the pressing issues in the health insurance industry for 2016. In addition to the pending insurance mergers and the Affordable Care Act’s exchange market, he discusses provider network adequacy and out-of-network bills. Despite consumer unrest, HCFO grantee Erin Trish, University of Southern California, notes that she “would be surprised if the entire market swung the other way toward broader networks and higher premiums.” In a HCFO-funded study [2] with Brad Herring, Johns Hopkins University, the researchers explored the extent to which insurance concentration and its balance with hospital concentration affect health insurance premiums. They found [3] that lower prices paid to providers were not passed on to consumers in the form of lower premiums.