Pooled purchasing : who are the players?

Stephen H. Long, M. Susan Marquis

ResearchPublished 1999

Data from the 1997 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Employer Health Insurance Survey provide the first national estimates of the prevalence of pooled purchasing under all major arrangements. About one-quarter of all business participate in a pool; smaller businesses are more likely to participate, and there is substantial geographic variation in the prevalence of pool participation. Pooling appears to have modest positive effects on the availability of employee choice among plans (especially health maintenance organizations) and on the availability of information about plan quality. On the other hand, pooling as now construed does not seem to have enhanced the accessibility or affordability of insurance to employers.

Document Details

Originally published in: Health Affairs, July/August 1999, pp. 105-111.

This publication is part of the RAND reprint series. The reprint series, a product of RAND from 1992 to 2011, included previously published journal articles, book chapters, and reports that were reproduced by RAND with the permission of the publisher. RAND reprints were formally reviewed in accordance with the publisher's editorial policy and compliant with RAND's rigorous quality assurance standards for quality and objectivity. For select current RAND journal articles, see external publications.

This document and trademark(s) contained herein are protected by law. This representation of RAND intellectual property is provided for noncommercial use only. Unauthorized posting of this publication online is prohibited; linking directly to this product page is encouraged. Permission is required from RAND to reproduce, or reuse in another form, any of its research documents for commercial purposes. For information on reprint and reuse permissions, please visit www.rand.org/pubs/permissions.

RAND is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. RAND's publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors.