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Information, market government, and health policy: A study of health data organizations in the states
Author(s) -
Overman E. Sam,
Cahill Anthony G.
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
journal of policy analysis and management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.898
H-Index - 84
eISSN - 1520-6688
pISSN - 0276-8739
DOI - 10.2307/3325385
Subject(s) - bureaucracy , government (linguistics) , competition (biology) , health care , state (computer science) , politics , public policy , health policy , public economics , public administration , business , public relations , economics , economic growth , political science , ecology , philosophy , linguistics , algorithm , computer science , law , biology
Information is essential to the success of market‐oriented policies. Information on health care costs and quality is collected and distributed by state governments through health data organizations (HDOs) to enhance competition and lower costs in the medical industry and to improve consumer choice among medical alternatives. This article examines the information collected, produced, and distributed by state health data organizations in Colorado and Pennsylvania. Findings reveal that information was not the objective determinant of choice and competition as market‐oriented policy designers had hoped. Nor did market‐oriented bureaucracies produce and distribute data readily accessible for public choice. Instead, information produced and distributed by these HDOs was the result of political and bureaucratic exercises that conform much more to classic interest group policymaking and captured bureaucracies than to contemporary market‐oriented government ideals. The findings underscore the extraordinary difficulties facing federal‐level policy designers as they contemplate introducing market‐oriented health care policies on the national level.