Timothy Jost runs down the grotesque inefficiencies in our "neither public nor private" healthcare system. The clearest next step in reform – getting rid of fee for service:
Our problems are exacerbated because, as the Bipartisan Policy Center's Julie Barnes pointed out in a March 2012 "America the Fixable" essay, we pay for most health care on a fee-for-service basis. This creates incentives for physicians to provide as many discrete services as possible to maximize payment (a tendency often justified by an asserted fear of malpractice litigation). Moreover, hospitals, laboratories, imaging facilities, and drug companies are often eager to reward physicians for ordering their products and services. Attempts by the fee-for-service Medicare program to control the amount or payments physicians receive to a "sustainable growth rate" were stymied as utilization of services grew rapidly and intensive lobbying defeated attempts to reduce prices accordingly.
The Dish 