Assignment 2: The Health Care Market

Use the Internet  to research the current health care delivery structures—both private and public—within your state.

Write a six to eight (6-8) page paper in which you:

1. Analyze the current health care delivery structure in your state. Compare and contrast the major determinants of health care market power.
2. Analyze the main competitive forces in the your health care delivery system in your state, and compare the major factors that influence the fundamental manner in which these competitive forces determine prices, supply and demand, quality of care, consumerism, and providers’ compensation.
3. Evaluate the positive benefits and negative aspects, respectively, of HMO managed care from the provider’s point of view—i.e., a physician and a health care facility—and from a patient’s point of view. Provide a rationale for your response.
4. Assess the efficiency of the types of economic incentives available to providers in the delivery of health care services in your own state.
5. Propose who bears the financial risk of a capitation payment system: the provider, the patient, or the consumer-driven health plan itself.
6. Use at least five (5) current references. Three (3) of these references must be from current peer-reviewed sources to support and substantiate your comments and perspectives.