Two Sided Platforms in the Health Care Markets: The Case of Czech Republic Healthcare Reform
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2014 |
| Type | Article in Proceedings |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Field | Management and administrative |
| Keywords | health care financing; health insurance companies; two-sided market theory |
| Description | Powerful institutions and weak position of patients became a typical feature of (not only) European health care markets. Since Arrow (1963), these characteristics are commonly explained by the tenet that health care markets differ significantly from the hypothetical perfect markets. Indeed, this difference is essentially arising from the information asymmetries between buyers (patients) and sellers (health care providers). This asymmetry in information seems to predestine the buyer (patient) to have a fragile position in the health care market. The empowerment of the patient seems to lead to higher health care markets efficiency, many questions arise: how to achieve any shift in power between patient and institutions; where to put the focus in health care policy reforms or what managerial tools to use to attain this goal. In this context, some authors [1 - 3] propose to examine the heath care market as so called “two-sided market”. [1] comes to the conclusion that if meaningful efficiency gains in health care are to be made, it is necessary to focus the health policy on the insurance and risk management arrangement. In other words, one of the answers to the above raised power shift questions could be to analyse the functioning of the health insurance market, the insurer ´s role and, in particular, the properties of health insurance contracts |
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