Healthcare: Knowledge is good.

Interesting article in the NY Times magazine (reg. req'd) about Harvard prof David Cutler, veteran of the Clinton health care plan wars, and now advocate of various reforms that would evaluate doctors and hospitals based on results. The upshot is what you can learn in high school economics: markets depend on good information to function efficiently. Bush and others have mentioned computerized patient information, with statistics to show docs if they're actually succeeding in making people healthier. He's not wrong (for once).

Now, some folks don't want good information in the health care marketplace. Keep in mind the example of Oregon's governor John Kitzhaber, who wanted to provide a state-researched and approved guide (now hosted on the AARP's website) to the relative effectiveness of prescription drugs. The pharmaceutical lobby fought him tooth and nail to keep information away from patients and providers, because they make a lot of money from heavily-advertised newer drugs that don't work as well as over-the-counter drugs. (For example, here's the scoop on Celebrex.)

Ignorance is more precious than oil. Who else is sitting on a mother lode? Expect the squatters to resist.