Findings from California State University East Bay Update Knowledge of Insurance (Private Power In Public Programs: Medicare, Medicaid, and the Structural Power of Private Insurance): Insurance

2023 MAR 09 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Health Policy and Law Daily -- Research findings on Insurance are discussed in a new report. According to news reporting originating in Hayward, California, by NewsRx editors, the research stated, “In 2019, nearly 70 percent of Medicaid beneficiaries received their health insurance coverage through a private, managed care organization (MCO). Twenty-five years earlier, 9.5 percent of Medicaid beneficiaries were enrolled in MCOs.”

The news reporters obtained a quote from the research from California State University East Bay, “This dramatic growth in Medicaid managed care enrollment represents the delegation of significant power by federal and state governments over a critical social program to private actors and market forces. Medicare, too, experienced a similar pattern of transformation. Together, Medicaid and Medicare, two critical pillars of American social policy, paid more than half a trillion dollars to private insurance companies in 2019 to provide public health insurance to 75 million people. This manuscript examines the policy consequences of building private firms directly into the structure of American social policies.”

According to the news reporters, the research concluded: “In contrast to existing work on ‘submerged ‘ or ‘delegated ‘ policies, this manuscript highlights the structural power that such policies bestow on the government’s private partners and develops a new theory of structural power in which firms are able to constrain health policy reform through their threats to disrupt the delivery of public policies and social benefits to millions of people across the United States.”

This research has been peer-reviewed.

For more information on this research see: Private Power In Public Programs: Medicare, Medicaid, and the Structural Power of Private Insurance. Studies in American Political Development, 2023:1-17. Studies in American Political Development can be contacted at: Cambridge Univ Press, 32 Avenue Of The Americas, New York, NY 10013-2473, USA. (Cambridge University Press - www.cambridge.org; Studies in American Political Development - http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayJournal?jid=SAP)

Our news correspondents report that additional information may be obtained by contacting Andrew S. S. Kelly, California State University East Bay, Dept. of Public Health, Hayward, CA 94542, United States.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.1017/s0898588x22000207. This DOI is a link to an online electronic document that is either free or for purchase, and can be your direct source for a journal article and its citation.

(Our reports deliver fact-based news of research and discoveries from around the world.)