title: Health insurance without provider influence: the limits of cost containment.
abstract: In our previous paper, we showed that market forces can play a significant role in controlling health care costs and that a considerable amount of cost containment effort was pursued by third-party insurers in Oregon in the 1930s and 1940s. Although physicians were able to thwart this cost-control effort, a 1986 Supreme Court decision, FTC v. Indiana Federation of Dentists, found that a boycott of insurers by dentists violated Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act. Further investigation of recent developments, including the recent Wickline v. California decision, indicates that the primary barriers to cost containment today are not obstructive tactics by providers or provider-controlled health insurance plans. Rather, the primary barriers are increases in the development and diffusion of new technology and society's apparent preference for paying for new tests and procedures regardless of economic efficiency.
authors.affiliation: University of Miami.
authors.forename: L G
authors.initials: LG
authors.lastname: Goldberg
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Greenberg
mesh_terms: D002140:California; D003363:Cost Control; D003752:Dental Health Services / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D007196:Indiana; D007348:Insurance, Health / Q000191:economics*; D008484:Medicaid / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D009922:Oregon; D013675:Technology, High-Cost; D014481:United States; D014485:United States Federal Trade Commission