“Behemoth and Leviathan,”  by William Blake.

This probably won’t surprise many people. But it’s useful to have some numbers on this matter.

A study by researchers from Harvard Medical School and published in the January issue of Health Affairs looked at multipayer claims data from 2014 to assess how insurers’ market power affected the rates that they could negotiate for office-based physician services.

They found that the greater market power gave insurers a big advantage.  Consider that for   rates for office visits paid to the same group of providers,  insurers with market shares of at least 15 percent  negotiated prices  21 percent lower than prices negotiated by insurers with market shares of less than 5 percent.

To read more about the study, please hit this link.