Reaction Paper
Darrell J. Gaskin is an internationally known expert in health care disparities, access to health care for vulnerable populations and safety net hospitals. He is the deputy director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Disparities Solutions and associate professor of Health Economics at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He is the vice chairman of the Maryland Health Benefit Exchange Board. Mr. Gaskin aims to explain how the market place works. How different market places, when stimulated by one thing they can react similarly.
Mr. Gaskin’s economic theory is uncertainty. In a market place when a bad product is offered at a lower price if forces those with quality products to leave the market place because they cannot sell their product for what it is worth. Similarly asymmetric information negatively impacts the market place for health insurance. Adverse selection causes people without health problems to not want to get insurance and those who do have to pay much higher premiums. To deal with these problem health insurance companies; will not accept people with pre-existing conditions, they will impose lifetime limits on coverage, or refuse to sell policies to particular segments of the market.
I agree with Mr. Gaskin on the uncertainty in the market place. It causes no one to benefit in the market place. People are essentially buying “lemon” policies and won’t get quality care. Insurance companies with good policies cannot compete with the “lemons” in the market place so they lose business. Two