Competition and monopoly in medical care

Competition in health care has grown rapidly in recent years, both in fact and in theory. Actual competition has grown with reforms in private health insurance and a weakening of professional power. Monopolistic elements in health care, though still important, have receded. As a topic for study and research, competition has grown even faster. The study of competition is itself a growth area. The literature is large, diverse, but poorly connected. A critical survey and synthesis are missing. This book is designed to fill that need, to explain what we know mostly from research literature, about how competition and monopoly function in the health care sector. The role of competition in this market is controversial and debatable. This book is meant to contribute to that debate indirectly by raising the level of scientific understanding underlying the policy discussions. The book is not meant to be polemical. Though my own preference for competition in health care surfaces, this is primarily a work of positive economics, not normative economics. That it, it is primarily designed to explain how competition and monopoly elements work in specific parts of the health care system. This book is not a systematic argument either for more competition or for a different sort of competition.