November 05, 2009 | View online

Interactive Map: Insurance Market Concentration Creates Fewer Choices

By Karen Davenport, Sonia Sekhar

View the map here.

It is clear that health insurance markets are broken. A tsunami of health insurance mergers has led to such high levels of concentration in insurance markets that there are now only one or two dominant insurers in many states. And these local monopolies go unchallenged because there are substantial barriers to entry and expansion for other insurers.

The accompanying data shows that one or two carriers dominate many state insurance markets. One carrier controls more than half the market in at least 17 states. Two carriers control at least half the market in at least 22 more. And the American Medical Association found in 2008 that insurance markets are highly concentrated in 94 percent of metropolitan statistical areas, and that a single carrier controlled at least 30 percent of the insurance market in 89 percent of these areas.

Read more and view the map here.

Also: Why We Need Health Care Reform: Updated State-by-State Fact Sheets

Ask the Expert: Health Spending Drives Deficits

Why is the United States running such high deficits? What will be the biggest driver of deficits in the next 10 years? How can we begin to get deficits under control? 
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