The solution to America's health-care problems: Price tags?

I want everyone to have easy access to price information, even those people who don’t think—or want—to ask. When I go to a hotel, there is sign on the back of the door that tells me the most the room can cost. When I go to a car dealership, there are sticker prices on every windshield. When I go to Wal-Mart, there are price tags on the shelves.

And that is what I want for doctors’ offices and hospitals, too: price tags. I want a little sign on my doctor’s front desk that tells me that office visits cost $700. I want a placard on every MRI machine in the nation that tells me that an ankle scan costs $1,050. I want the consumer marketplace to be flooded with information about how much health care costs. And then I want tech entrepreneurs to create web sites and iPhone apps to help people comparison shop medical services.

I’m hardly the first to argue we need more consumer skin in the game. Back in the late ’70s and early ’80s, the landmark Rand Health Insurance Experiment found that when consumers have to help pay for medical care they use less of it. The study found that consumers gave up both appropriate and inappropriate care, which might seem worrisome—you don’t want people not going to the doctor at all until they’re in such bad shape that they go to the ER. But the study also found little impact on people’s health.