Anthony T. LoSasso

Anthony T. LoSasso, Ph.D., is Professor and Senior Research Scientist in the Health Policy and Administration Division at the School of Public Health and the Institute of Government and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He also serves as the director of the UIC Center for Employee Health Studies and serves as the executive director of the American Society of Health Economists. Dr. LoSasso is an economist whose research spans several dimensions of health and labor economics, health policy, and health services and outcomes research. He is keenly interested in how government policies affect private sector decisions. Dr. LoSasso’s research has explored the impact of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program on insurance among children and the extent to which public coverage may have “crowded out” private coverage of children; how community rating provisions in state health insurance markets affect health insurance coverage; and how the availability of safety net health care services affects the willingness of firms to offer health insurance and the willingness of employees to take-up health insurance when it is offered.

An area of particular interest for Dr. LoSasso is the effects of health insurance benefit design on health care utilization and health outcomes. This work includes a National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) funded study to examine the impact of an expansion of mental health benefits on cost and quality of care at a large manufacturing firm, ongoing work examining the effects of high-deductible health insurance on health care use, and a recently funded grant from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to study “narrow network” health insurance plans. With training in labor and health economics and extensive experience studying the effects of insurance in both the private and public sectors, Dr. LoSasso is a nationally recognized leader in the field.