What's Ahead for Health Insurance in the United States?

The announcement that most of the nation's biggest insurers — Aetna, CIGNA, Humana, the United Health Group, and Wellpoint Health Network — will be introducing a new kind of health plan during the next year or two signals the beginning of a new era in health insurance in the United States.1 These plans feature a complicated menu of premiums, copayments, and deductibles that will add impetus to the trend of employers' offering a defined contribution for health benefits. Each employee will get a fixed amount of money to spend as he or she sees fit and will use the Internet . . .