this policy brief discusses preventive care benefits and cost-sharing included in health insurance provisions of the affordable care act (aca) legislation and highlights some consequences to americans and the country in terms of healthcare costs and value.

We explore how private drug plans set cost-sharing in the context of Medicare Part D. While publicly-provided drug coverage typically involves uniform cost-sharing across drugs, we document substantial heterogeneity in the cost-sharing for different drugs within privately-provided plans. We also document that private plans systematically set higher consumer cost sharing for drugs or classes ass...

Purchasers and health plans are reemphasizing deductibles, coinsurance, and other consumer incentives in response to renewed inflation and the continuing backlash against managed care. This paper explores the partial convergence of cost sharing and benefit design for preferred provider and health maintenance products and highlights experiments that foster price-conscious choice among benefit co...

background both rising healthcare costs and the global financial crisis have fueled a search for policy tools in order to avoid unsustainable future financing of essential health benefits. the scope of essential health benefits (the range of services covered) and depth of coverage (the proportion of costs of the covered benefits that is covered publicly) are corresponding variables in determini...

This paper analyses how different types of access regulation to next generation networks affect investments and consumer welfare. The model consists of an investment stage with uncertain returns and subsequent quantity competition. The access price is a function of investment costs and the regulatory regime. A regime with fully distributed costs or regulatory holiday induces highest investments...

OBJECTIVES To evaluate the effect of consumer cost sharing on use of physician-administered and patient self-administered specialty drugs for rheumatoid arthritis. DESIGN Multivariate statistical analysis of probability and use of physician-administered specialty drugs, patient self-injected specialty drugs, non-biologic disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs, and symptom relief drugs. Analys...

BACKGROUND Numerous mechanisms have been introduced to deliver prescription drug benefits while controlling pharmaceutical costs. An understanding of the most prominent mechanisms of benefit management is an important step in determining the most effective approach to take in future years. OBJECTIVES The aims of this review were to illustrate the mechanisms by which managed care has attempted...