Medicare head pushes health care test sites: Berwick off to a fast start

The Boston Globe reports:

Newly installed Medicare chief Donald Berwick, keeping a low public profile after encountering controversy over his appointment, is moving quickly behind the scenes to seed the US health care system with 100 to 300 sites to test new models of caring for patients.

Since July 6, when President Obama bypassed the Senate confirmation process and named Berwick with a recess appointment, the Cambridge health guru and former Harvard professor has made launching the sites a high priority, according to officials and industry executives.

Already, health care lobbyists are seeking to influence how Medicare will decide which physician groups and hospitals to include in the first wave of pilots. Providers from Massachusetts are expected to be among groups from across the country vying for designation as “accountable care organizations’’ under the program.

Berwick is using a tool that Congress included in the new health care law: an innovation center with $10 billion to spend over the next decade in a quest for the best ways of improving care and reducing costs.

Central planner Berwick can never achieve what real competition in the health care market could. Only competition among health care providers can lower prices. Competition means health insurance polices without conditions mandated by government which can be bought across state lines.