Is a genuine market in health insurance even possible?

A new study suggests health care doesn't work like other products

Too many options.
(Image credit: iStock)

Genuine competitive markets in health insurance and health care are sort of like Bigfoot: There's no real documented case of them appearing in the wild, but some people remain convinced they're out there.

ObamaCare itself is premised on the notion that competitive markets — albeit ones that occur in an environment heavily structured by regulations and subsidies — are possible. And ObamaCare's conservative critics insist that no, even that structuring is too much, and that we need to clear out even more regulation and spend even less and then we'll get to a competitive market. Yet every other advanced nation relies on some form of single-payer or all-payer rate-setting — including Switzerland, arguably ObamaCare's closest cousin.

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Jeff Spross

Jeff Spross was the economics and business correspondent at TheWeek.com. He was previously a reporter at ThinkProgress.