The Role of Government in Transparency

The following is published today at the Commonwealth Fund:
"To achieve transparency and improve performance in the health care system, Collins and her testimony co-author, Fund President Karen Davis, Ph.D., believe the federal government should take a leadership role in creating a database on costs and quality and encouraging the incorporation of quality and efficiency measures into pay-for-performance systems operated by Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurers. At the same time, "higher patient cost-sharing and high-deductible health plans are the wrong prescription," the authors write, noting that they ultimately place a greater financial burden on the sickest and poorest patients. "

My take...Dr. Davis, it is time to use public-private partnerships to effect change and to halt the needless heavy hand of the federal government unless done in a collaborative manner with the free hand of the marketplace we all hope to eventually establish in this most peculiar of markets.