David Matthew Cutler (born June 22, 1965) is an American economist who is the Otto Eckstein Professor of Applied Economics at Harvard University.
Professor Cutler published a book with the same title in 2014 which details how "Focusing on Health Care Quality Can Save Your Life and Lower Spending Too."
It explored why some employees who participate in employee-sponsored insurance programs change enrollment status between Health Maintenance Organization-managed care and fee for service options.
The study conducted analyses by creating models based on data from the Massachusetts state employee health insurance programs.
[9] Although there is little difference in terms of selection effects between HMOs and FFS since the enrollee pays a small portion of marginal costs, Cutler contends that adverse selection (less-healthy individuals moving from more restrictive HMO to less-restrictive and more-costly FFS plans) has a greater impact than adverse retention on enrollees' choice of health plans.
In addition, it is relevant to the current discussions concerning the possibility of having competitive choice health insurance plans based upon risk adjustments.