More Care, Not Better Care

This article contains nothing that is the slightest bit surprising, but it still provides a nice illustration of some of the problems with the US's health care system:

In Health Care, Cost Isn’t Proof of High Quality

In a Pennsylvania government survey of the state’s 60 hospitals that perform heart bypass surgery, the best-paid hospital received nearly $100,000, on average, for the operation while the least-paid got less than $20,000. At both, patients had comparable lengths of stay and death rates.

But the best part of the article is a single sentence that comes about half-way through the piece. It is the sentence that cleanly and concisely encapsulates the biggest structural flaw in the US health care system:

[S]o hospitals are rewarded for providing more care, not better care.

I can't sum it up any better than that.