Its many cost-control provisions are geared toward reducing the amount of care we consume, not the price we pay.

The price problem that health-care reform failed to cure
        
The Washington Post - Sunday, October 24, 2010

The health-care law of 2010 is, as Vice President Biden put it, a "big fuc*ing deal." It sets us on the road to universal health insurance. It is a favorite target for Republicans gunning to take over Congress. Lawmakers who supported it could lose their jobs. And it will remain a central focus after the midterms, as Democrats defend it against legal and political challenges through 2014, when it takes full effect.

But the Democrats' effort to sell the law to the public may be undermined by what even some ardent supporters consider its biggest shortfall. The overhaul left virtually untouched one big element of our health-care dilemma: the price problem. Simply put, Americans pay much more for each bit of care -- tests, procedures, hospital stays, drugs, devices -- than people in other rich nations.

Health-care providers in the United States have tremendous power to set prices. There is no government "single payer" on the other side of the table, and consolidation by hospitals and doctors has left insurers and employers in weak negotiating positions.

"We spend fewer per capita days in the hospital compared with other advanced countries, we see the doctor less frequently, and we swallow fewer pills," said Jon Kingsdale, who oversaw the implementation of Massachusetts's 2006 health-care law. "We just pay a lot more for each of those units than other countries."

The 2010 law does little to address this. Its many cost-control provisions are geared toward reducing the amount of care we consume, not the price we pay. The law encourages doctors and hospitals to join "accountable care organizations" that have financial incentives to limit unnecessary care; it beefs up "comparative effectiveness research" to weed out inefficient treatments; and it will eventually tax the most expensive insurance plans to restrain consumers' superfluous use of health care....