The culmination of years of consolidation among health insurers is restricting competition in four out of five metropolitan areas in the United States, new analysis from the American Medical Association finds.
The 2011 edition of “Competition in Health Insurance: A Comprehensive Study of U.S. Markets,” analyzes commercial health insurance market shares and federal concentration measures for 368 metropolitan markets and 48 states. The study finds a significant absence of health insurer competition exists in 83% of metropolitan markets studied by the AMA. Indeed, in about half of metropolitan markets, at least one health insurer had a commercial market share of 50% or more, and in 24 of the 48 states in study, the two largest health insurers had a combined commercial market share of 70% or more. In order, the 10 states with the least competitive commercial health insurance markets are: Alabama, Alaska, Delaware, Michigan, Hawaii, District of Columbia, Nebraska, North Carolina, Indiana and Maine.
