Real data and informed consumers are a very valid way to promote improvement through "competition".
Often times though, that's not enough as is the case in LA right now where patients are being prevented from using the best doctors:
Two of the most prestigious names in Southern California healthcare — Cedars-Sinai and UCLA — are getting shut out of a major insurance plan for being too expensive.
In a bold cost-cutting move, Anthem Blue Cross has eliminated doctors affiliated with the hospitals from a health plan offered to about 60,000 employees and dependents at the cash-strapped city of Los Angeles.
The city opted for Anthem's plan because it will save $7.6 million in annual premiums next year by excluding physicians from the two institutions known for tending to the Southland's rich and famous. About 2,200 city workers and family members are expected to lose access to their doctors under the plan.
This dramatic step shows that even some of the most-respected names in medicine can't get by on reputation alone at a time when the U.S. is grappling with a $2.6-trillion healthcare bill annually. Major hospitals and medical groups face growing pressure to justify their charges. And employers increasingly are willing to risk the ire of workers by cutting popular providers to clamp down on costs.
Often times though, that's not enough as is the case in LA right now where patients are being prevented from using the best doctors:
Two of the most prestigious names in Southern California healthcare — Cedars-Sinai and UCLA — are getting shut out of a major insurance plan for being too expensive.
In a bold cost-cutting move, Anthem Blue Cross has eliminated doctors affiliated with the hospitals from a health plan offered to about 60,000 employees and dependents at the cash-strapped city of Los Angeles.
The city opted for Anthem's plan because it will save $7.6 million in annual premiums next year by excluding physicians from the two institutions known for tending to the Southland's rich and famous. About 2,200 city workers and family members are expected to lose access to their doctors under the plan.
This dramatic step shows that even some of the most-respected names in medicine can't get by on reputation alone at a time when the U.S. is grappling with a $2.6-trillion healthcare bill annually. Major hospitals and medical groups face growing pressure to justify their charges. And employers increasingly are willing to risk the ire of workers by cutting popular providers to clamp down on costs.
- http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hospital-costs-2012092...