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“We must increase the level of competition in health care,” is quite possibly the most overused and exaggerated statement this year in the realm of health policy. From presidential campaign voucher programs to free-market, libertarian blog posts, the nation seems fixated on this principle that competition will absolve all our nation’s health care woes. And although I encourage such political participation, I find these statements completely irrational. Increasing health care competition will have a marginal impact at best on cutting overall cost.

Peers who disagree often remind me, “competition works every day.” I agree with that statement. Millions of consumers purchase items or services from various sources, ranging from oil changes to toothpaste. The relative importance of price versus quality is judged. Each product is used, evaluated and then discarded. Those products or services meeting satisfactory standards are repurchased.

A prime example of this is the automobile industry. Potential buyers test drive and then review car ratings from consumer reports. The individual can effectively compare the specifications, price and reliability of similarly desired models, with the guarantee that all products are standardized. Car manufactures Honda and Toyota have surely benefited. Following market principles, by offering quality cars with high fuel efficiency and lower costs, they took huge market share, while drivers got sweet deals.

Unfortunately, do not assume the consumer reports approach will work for health care. It won’t. Hospitals offer too large of a range of services with various complications and medical jargon. In today’s world, it has become exceedingly difficult to pick the right professionals outside one’s area of expertise. Being a good attorney does not mean you can pick a good Hematologist. In addition, hospital report cards can be misleading. For example, mortality rates cannot be considered a strong indication of medical performance unless patient age, “do not resuscitate” orders, and health complexity issues are taken into consideration.

Health care services just follow a different set of rules. Coronary bypass surgery or limb amputations are huge decisions with irreversible consequences if the “wrong” purchase is made, which is much different than switching your internet provider. The risk of no trial runs, coupled with high emotion from the patient and sphere of influence, sometimes cloud best judgment.

Then there are those who argue competition will be attributed to insurers. Problem is coverage plans differ in everything from medication deductibles to procedure co-pays to specialist referrals. Patient safety, cost, coverage, and effectiveness of medical intervention must be considered. Using comparison charts and graphs for different plans will become overwhelming for the average American. In order to have a high-level discussion and evaluation of health insurance, one must have the capacity to evaluate an extremely confusing process.

Instead of focusing all of our attention on increasing health care competition, we must discuss less televised, more pertinent issues. Here are some examples:

1. Cap the rise of high-deductible insurance plans. Such high-deductibles have become the crux of the health insurance scheme and negatively impact the middle to lower income citizens who pay $1000 plus deductibles right off the top. Executive government leadership could hold costs flat for the year and publicly report the findings.
2. Ensure that money saved by Lean hospital practice is returned to the patients. Innovation and efficiency should and must be reinvested to help lower the costs of patient payments, not support health system endowments.
3. Advocate for the implementation of bundled payments to encourage a more comprehensive care approach. For example, a patient would pay for surgery plus the next 60 days of care. Ensuring broader payments may result in better overall care.
4. Continued discussion of research done by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality on applying value purchasing to the private practice.

The biggest problem of our health care system is by design. Health care is driven by a high market share business model. Health systems succeed by offering more things to more patients. If we desire true reform, it requires systemic improvement to addresses this overarching principle. By incorporating a “flooding the zone strategy,” a wide portfolio of changes can be implemented to improve many facets of the problem all at once. Much better than this disingenuous claim that competition is the health care reform magic bullet.

Andrew G. Mychkovsky is a Project Coordinator at Blue Cottage Consulting.