Economic analysis of private health and insurance plans: is there rationality in the regulation that induces preventive strategy?

Abstract

Objective: To analyze the sectorial regulation of supplementary health and to reflect on the rationality of a health regulation that induces the prevention of diseases. Methods: A description of the Brazilian health insurance market was presented based on the economic analysis of the law. Next, the economic impacts of adopting preventive health care were described. Finally, preventive health-inducing regulation was evaluated. Results: There is rationality in the development of health promotion and disease prevention programs by health plan operators. The dissemination of the model, however, involves factors such as health management, the availability of a specialized team and, above all, regulation in supplementary health. This last factor, through the exercise of normative and supervisory functions, may be able to induce the market towards a preventive health model. Conclusion: Despite the economic theory indicating the rationality of implementing a care model with a focus on preventive health, it appears that the Brazilian supplementary health market has not developed in this sense. It is expected that state regulation will be a tool to induce a care model that is beneficial to market agents, which has not yet occurred in the case under analysis.