James Maxwell

Beginning with his first project in 1995, James Maxwell, Ph.D. has used funds from the HCFO initiative to study health care benefit practices among Fortune 500 companies, state employee groups, and other large employers. Over the course of this work, he has found that most large employers purchase health care as they do other inputs to their business.

"Through their tough negotiating tactics with health plans, large companies are buying health care in the same way that General Motors buys auto parts," Maxwell says.

Maxwell hopes his research findings will give public--and private--sector managers the critical information they need to purchase health care effectively. "The need for independent sources of information on health purchasing is particularly acute among public sector employers," he says.

The findings of Maxwell's three HCFO studies can be found in three reports released by the National Health Care Purchasing Institute and in several journal articles.

In addition to his HCFO work Maxwell's research group is studying the experience and viewpoints of large private and public employers in California that are moving toward emerging health insurance practices, such as consumer-driven health plans, tiered hospital products, tiered drug plans, and Web-based and other disease/care management strategies.

"Large private employers are experimenting with this new generation of market-oriented practices," says Maxwell. "Their early experiences with these products may determine how widely they spread and, ultimately, the nature of our private health financing system."

Maxwell received his Ph.D. in public policy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is now the Director of Health Policy and Management Research at the JSI Research and Training Institute in Boston.

Recent Publications by James Maxwell and colleagues:

National Health Care Purchasing Institute Reports
Corporate Health Care Purchasing among the Fortune 500
Health Care Purchasing among State Employee Groups (Forthcoming)

Journal Articles

Maxwell J and Temin P. "Managed competition versus industrial purchasing of health care among the Fortune 500," Journal of Health Policy, Politics, and Law, Vol. 27, No. 1, February 2002, pp. 5-30.

Maxwell J, et al. "The benefits divide: health care purchasing in retail versus other sectors," Health Affairs, Vol. 21, No. 5, September-October 2002, pp. 224-33.