Journal Publication

Dr. Scheffler, Dr. Fulton, and Graduate Researcher Daniel Arnold, along with Dr. Sherry Glied of New York University, have a newly published paper in Health Affairs this week. The paper, “Differing Impacts Of Market Concentration On Affordable Care Act Marketplace Premiums,”examines recent increases in market concentration among health plans, hospitals, and medical groups in order to see the impact of these mergers on consumer’s costs. Specifically, the impact of concentration on health insurance premiums was examined in two Affordable Care Act state-based marketplaces: Covered California and NY State of Health, both for 2014-2015. Ultimately, the paper finds that both states exhibited a positive association between hospital concentration and premium growth and a positive (but not statistically significant) association between medical group concentration and premium growth, but differed between the two states, with premium growth in New York yet negative premium growth in California, potentially the result of the marketplace’s selectively contracting with health plans.

The full paper can be read on the Health Affairs website here.

Professor Scheffler is the editor of a just released 3-volume Global Health Policy and Economics Handbook through World Scientific Publishing. The official launch was January 3, 2016 at the American Economics Association meeting in San Francisco.

To learn more about the handbook, the topics it covers, and the authors, please visit here.

The University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration issued an announcement on the release of the “Assessing Accountable Care Organizations: Cost, Quality, and Market Power” special issue of the Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law (volume 40, issue 4). The special issue is “an in-depth look at accountable care organizations (ACOs): networks of hospitals, physicians, or other health care providers that share financial and medical responsibility for the coordinated care of a patient.” The special issue was co-edited by Colleen M. Grogan, editor of JHPPL, Professor; Co-Chair, Center for Health Administration Studies; Faculty Chair, Graduate Program in Health Administration and Policy; Editor, Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law at the University of Chicago and by Richard M. Scheffler, Director of the Petris Center, with much of the content supported through the Nicholas C. Petris Center, with funding from the California Attorney General’s office.

Read the full press release here.

The full journal article can be accessed here.

An article by Petris Center Director Richard M. Scheffler and Christopher Whaley, H. E. Frech III, Benjamin R. Handel, Liora Bowers, and Carol J. Simon was published in the Review of Industrial Organizations journal on July 15, 2015.

“‘Accessing Accountable Care Organizations: Cost, Quality, and Market Power,’ a special issue of the Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law (volume 40, issue 4), is an in-depth look at accountable care organizations (ACOs): networks of hospitals, physicians or other health care providers that share financial and medical responsibility for the coordinated care of a patient.

Now numbering over 700 throughout the United States, ACOs were rare prior to the passage of the Affordable Care Act. Their increased presence has sparked a debate about issues important to patients, providers, and taxpayers throughout the nation. ‘Integrated health delivery systems and accountable care organizations are becoming ubiquitous in our health care system,’ Richard Scheffler, special issue editor, states. ‘They potentially could bend the cost curve and improve the quality of care, but they also present a threat to the competitiveness of health care markets.'”

Read the full press release here.

The full journal can be found here.