Market won’t fix Rx care

Today's column by Cynthia Tucker is great. Here's an excerpt:

President Barack Obama has proposed pouring funds into studies to determine which procedures and medicines actually make patients better. The medical establishment would then be expected to use only those treatments.

But three senators — Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Pat Roberts (R-Kan.,) — have introduced a bill to oppose using that research in calculating payments to Medicare and Medicaid. In other words, they want taxpayers to pay for treatments that don’t work. Unbelievable.

A research-based approach is much more likely to yield savings in the long run than expecting individual consumers to figure out which tests they should pay for — and how much they should cost. The unregulated marketplace is pretty good at adjusting prices on houses, cars, shoes and hotel rooms. Medical care? Not so much.