The employer co-shares the payment towards the monthly premium with the employee. Commercial coverage does include public employee health benefits, both insured and self-insured, such as the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) and state public employee programs. The regional investor-owned health plans could be acquisition targets, offering national carriers increased enrollment and further reducing the potential for price competition. The investor-owned firms announced aggregate commercial enrollment targets for 2004 of 1.8 million, exceeding realistic possibilities. Unrealistic enrollment growth targets among the for-profit firms and regulatory pressures on the nonprofit plans are driving premium moderation in the short term. The top three firms typically dominate each market, as indicated in the third column of Exhibit 1 . The consolidation of the industry at the hands of the largest health plans is evident in the far right column of Exhibit 2 . You will be working with a professional recruiter who has intimate knowledge of the Information Technology industry and market trends .

The results also suggest a general test for asymmetric information. Large, multistate employers typically purchase self-insured benefits administration from one or more of the national carriers listed in Exhibit 2 or from a state-specific Blues plan linked to the national BlueCard network. Together the Blues plans and the three national non-Blues carriers control more than 60 percent of the market in thirty-four states and more than 70 percent of the market in twenty-three states. 3 The market share data for Virginia do not include the suburban areas of metropolitan Washington, D.C., which are combined with the data for the District of Columbia. 10 No equivalent data are available for self-insured funding arrangements, where health plans are paid an administrative fee in lieu of premium and are not responsible for paying claims. 24 A sustained period of high prices and profits in health insurance would result in continuing shrinkage in the number of firms purchasing coverage for employees, which eventually would engender a political backlash.

Continued growth in premiums and the number of uninsured citizens could impel an expansion of public programs such as Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). The number and relative size of local health plans may be largely irrelevant. 7 The market for multistate employers in 2003 was served by Aetna (14 percent), CIGNA (9 percent), United (15 percent), WellPoint (12 percent), Anthem (5 percent), other Blue Cross plans (12 percent), First Health (8 percent), and other (25 percent). 22 To the extent that regulators are successful in jawboning Blue Cross to lower premiums, however, the consolidation of enrollment and market share will only accelerate. WellPoint, Anthem, and United, however, consistently received double-digit rates of appreciation in share prices. We conduct cross-sectional regressions of statewide BIL claims frequency rates on variables representing state economic, demographic, and legal characteristics that affect the marginal costs and benefits of filing claims. One car accident attorney in Tampa, Florida, explains that no-fault state drivers must carry personal injury protection coverage as part of their auto insurance policies. But the majority of Americans covered by commercial health insurance are not enrolled in insured HMOs but in PPOs and in self-insured products not covered or counted by state regulatory agencies.

The contemporary imagery of health care consumerism evokes a transfer of decision-making rights and responsibilities from the insurer to the individual and the consequent withering away of the managed care organization. An alternative and equally radical product innovation, compared with the dominant insurance designs of today, would renew close contractual ties between particular insurers and physician organizations, as was attempted during the era of managed competition. Commercial health plan enrollment (employment-based and individually purchased) must be separated from noncommercial lines of insurance offered by the same carriers, including Medicare, Medicaid, and the military TRICARE managed care programs. Mortality rates are found to depend on the mix of health care expenditures and the type of health insurance coverage. More required coverage is more cost, out of pocket maximums is more costs, and the private care costs themselves are running up given all the limits on supply on the provider side. 2000-2003. This includes year-over-year rates of growth in medical costs, premium rates, operating profit margins, and share prices, plus the average yearly ratio of medical costs to premium revenues for insured products (medical cost ratio). The correlation between the structure of an industry, measured in terms of the share distribution of competing firms, and its long-term profitability, is patchy at best, because of the important role of other determinants of revenues and costs.