Competition between For-Profit and Nonprofit Health Care Providers and Quality

Abstract

We develop a model including many features of health care systems: a limited number of approved treatments of certain qualities, insurance schemes reimbursing costs of a standard service, and nonprofit organizations competing with for-profit suppliers. All the equilibria exhibit quality differentiation, and the nonprofit captures a higher market share. Nonprofits (for-profits) supply the standard service when the quality upgrade induces a sufficiently high (low) increase in production costs. When the nonprofit provides the standard quality, all patients are served. In contrast, in a for-profit duopoly the standard-quality provider chargesa price premium, implying that there are excluded consumers.