What remains broken about the health care system: Fee-for-service, malpractice, lack of competition

Here's a brief health care bill analysis, excerpted from the Votemaster, a website I recommend for insider political info at http://www.electoral-vote.com/.

"When all is said and done, we may have a bill, but it really doesn't reform what everyone agrees is a broken system. What it does is have the government buy poor and semipoor people insurance within the framework of the current system. The fee-for-service paradigm, which encourages doctors to do unnecessary procedures thus driving costs (and their income) up, is still fully intact. The malpractice situation, which drives doctors to practice defensive medicine by ordering all kinds of useless tests to cover their tushes in the event of a subsequent lawsuit remains the same. The fundamental lack of competition between insurance companies, most of whom have something close to a regional monopoly does not change. In short, while 30 million people will get health insurance as a result of this bill, the factors driving health-care costs ever upward will not be broken."

My own editorial is simple: expand Medicare to all U.S. citizens.