If a more patient-driven selection of a cardiac doc via his skin in the game were used, competition would solve it

Reader comment on: Mount Sinai's $4.8 Million Cardiologist
in response to reader comment: If doctors and hospitals get paid for performing procedures then...

Submitted by Mark Michael (United States), Mar 17, 2014 16:37

Not to beat a dead horse, or state the obvious, but Medicaid with its fixed compensation rate is the problem. If there were a real competitive marketplace where cardiac doc's could charge what they wished, and the patients paid for at least part of the cost, say a voucher system instead of Medicaid, he'd have skin in the game and would be motivated to pick the lower-cost cardiologist. If he wanted to do some homework, he could investigate the skill of the cardiologists and try to pick the most cost-effective one.

I believe at one point GOP Rep. Paul Ryan proposed a voucher system to replace our current means-tested health care federal programs. Once such a system was operating for 5 or 10 years, things would shake out - and there would not be any cardiologists earning $48/year!

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