Five ways to reform health care

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/11/AR2010021103271.html
These are a grand start, and of note, do not increase a citizen's dependency on the government.

"(1) Incentivize patients to be smart consumers: When people buy food, clothes or cars, they compare prices and quality. Why should health care be any different? In Minnesota, we've created incentives for public employees to be wise health-care consumers and given them the information to make smart decisions. Under our system, if patients go to a high-quality, low-cost clinic, they pay less; if they don't, they pay more. As a result, the vast majority has migrated to more cost-efficient health-care providers, and we've seen zero or small increases in premiums since 2005. Any federal reforms should similarly make quality and costs more transparent, and incentivize smarter health-care decisions.
(2) Pay for performance: Under America's current system, health-care providers are rewarded for the number of procedures they perform, not for performance. As a result, the system encourages unnecessary tests that increase costs. In Minnesota, we started an innovative program to measure and set performance metrics for providers and make the results public. We are changing our payment system to reward quality rather than quantity. Congress should pass reforms that allow people to stop paying for procedures and start paying for results.
(3) Liability reform: Another way to cut down on unnecessary procedures is to reduce the threat of lawsuits facing health-care providers. This can be a tricky issue for many Democrats, so I was encouraged last summer when President Obama nevertheless opened the door to liability reforms. At a minimum, we should establish uniform standards for medical liability limits to discourage interstate jury shopping that drives up everybody's health-care costs.
(4) Interstate health-care insurance: There is no reason a Minnesotan should not be able to buy health insurance from other states. Doing so would dramatically increase insurance choices and cut costs through improved competition. I've proposed legislation to allow Minnesotans to buy health insurance from other states and am working with other governors to establish an interstate purchasing pool with strict standards. This system would be modeled after the similar insurance exchange that has made life insurance easier to purchase in more than 30 states since 2006. The federal government could facilitate a similar initiative for interstate health insurance.
(5) Modernize health insurance: We need to reform the employee-based health-care system. Workers are likely to switch jobs many times over their careers, but the current system often punishes individuals who switch jobs or start businesses. That makes no sense. We should make health insurance transferable so employees can keep their coverage if they switch jobs; prohibit insurance companies from discriminating against individuals whose preexisting conditions were covered under insurance they lost through no fault of their own; and encourage the expansion of modern forms of paying for health care, such as health savings accounts."