Voluntary Purchasing Pools: A Market Model for Improving Access, Quality, and Cost in Health Care

1 May 1996 | Volume 124 Issue 9 | Pages 845-853

States and small businesses have been rapidly establishing voluntary health care purchasing pools during the past few years.Purchasing pools can decrease health care costs, improve access for some small businesses and individual persons, allow greater choice among health care plans, and provide continuity of care. Purchasing pools also help to even the balance of power in the health care market-place, which has come increasingly under the control of huge proprietary managed care corporations. This position paper of the American College of Physicians discusses how a system of well-designed voluntary purchasing pools can help protect the integrity of health care in the emerging managed care marketplace.

Author and Article Information

*This paper was authored by Kathleen M. Haddad, MS, and was developed for the Health and Public Policy Committee of the American College of Physicians: Christine K. Cassel, MD, chair, Robert A. Berenson, MD, vice-chair, Philip D. Bertram, MD; Philip Altus, MD; Angela McLean, MD; Risa J. Lavizzo-Mourey, MD; William M. Fogarty, MD; David J. Gullen, MD; Nancy E. Gary, MD; Derrick L. Latos, MD; Janice Herbert-Carter, MD; James Webster Jr., MD; and Richard Honsiger Jr., MD. Approved by the Board of Regents on 14 July 1995.
Requests for Reprints: Kathleen M. Haddad, MS, 700 13th Street, NW, Suite 250, Washington, DC 20005.