For decades, insurance companies have been pricing policies based on the belief that adverse selection comes into play among their customers. Adverse selection is what happens when the people who need protection most — those, for example, with the greatest health problems or worst driving records — buy lots of coverage. But Michael Keane, professor of economics at the W. P. Carey School of Business, says there are no empirical data proving adverse selection. In fact, insurance companies often benefit from "advantageous selection," because the people who are the best risks also are their best customers. In reality, those who need lots of coverage often do not buy it — usually because they don’t understand the offerings. Policy makers and political leaders who are trying to reform healthcare should take note, Keane says.

Regina Herzlinger has been dubbed "the Godmother of Consumer-Driven Health Care," and without question she is a revolutionary in her field. It was Herzlinger who pulled back the curtain to reveal the unraveling of managed care, and who predicted the rise of consumer-driven health care and health care-focused factories. What would this forward-thinker have to say about alternatives to the current single-payer-by-employer health insurance system? Probably not replacing it with a similar single-payer-by-government health insurance system. Herzlinger recently delivered the Second Annual Health Economics and Policy Lecture at the W. P. Carey School.