A community-led partnership in Colorado designed to negotiate health care prices lowered health care premiums in 2020 and 2021, we find in our new paper in the Journal of Risk and Insurance. The nonprofit organization is called the Peak Health Alliance. As health care premiums continue to rise nationwide, many employers have formed so-called purchasing alliances in hopes of collectively reducing health care costs for their employees. Despite their popularity, to date there has been limited evidence to show these alliances work to control costs. We are health economics professors who have extensively studied policies that affect the design and cost of health insurance. Our work includes an earlier study we published in the American Journal of Managed Care that found large individual employers generally lack the ability to negotiate lower prices for their employees. Peak Health Alliance was started in response to a Kaiser Health News report that found Summit County, which includes the...
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