What's missing in the Healthcare Reform debate

I applaud our political leadership for starting a serious debate on health care reform. This is over due and it appears this time to be getting more traction than the previous attempt under Hillary Clinton. The primary ideas that seem to be floating around this version of the reform debate seem to be:

a. Socialize the cost of care by spreading it around
b. Expect a quality improvement by investing in lots of new back-office technology
c. An acknowledgment that costs are too high and getting higher but no real consensus as to how to reduce them.

What seems to be missing is the traditional tools we have used in other markets:

1. Price transparency -- Imagine what the cost of clothing would be if you could go to the store and pick up a pair of jeans but did not find out the total cost for 45 days and only 20% of this unknown cost came from your pocket at that time.

2. Quality information -- Using our clothing analogy; imagine the retailer can't advertise and there is no way to evaluate quality. You are told it is all too complicated to understand. Plus the retailer will tell you which jeans are appropriate for you, you don't get to pick.

3. Competition -- a highly regulated industry that seems to use regulations to raise barriers to entry instead of reducing costs and improving quality.

4. Access and Availability -- what good is all this "insurance" if you can't get access to high quality care when you need it where you need it?

The states are trying different experiments, its just I don't see anything fully comprehensive.