Posting date: December 13, 2005

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Health Affairs, 10.1377/hlthaff.w5.583
Copyright © 2005 by Project HOPE

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Consumer-Directed Health Insurance: The Next Generation

¹ Jack Rowe, a physician, is chairman and chief executive officer of Aetna, one of the nation's largest insurance companies. Jamie Robinson is the Kaiser Permanente Distinguished Professor of Health Economics at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Public Health.

^*Corresponding author.

Abstract

Aetna has led the transition of the commercial health insurance industry from a focus on managed care to a focus on "consumer-driven" products that offer more information while demanding higher cost sharing from enrollees. But most health care costs are incurred by very sick patients who have spent beyond their cost-sharing limits and are not directly affected by these financial incentives. Aetna CEO Jack Rowe discusses his firm's initiatives to moderate the cost of care for ill as well as healthy patients, including providing information on provider prices, contracting for narrow physician specialty networks, and promoting disease management and case management programs.

Key Words: Business Of Health, Consumer Issues, Managed Care, Managed Care - Consumers, Insurance Market

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