Opinion: When competitive bidding hurts patients

Because of Medicare's size and position in the healthcare market, it is likely that this policy will be quickly adopted by Medicaid and private insurers. A one-year experiment with expanded competitive bidding that was recently conducted by Medicare yielded cost savings of 42 percent, without reducing the quality of care, and was hailed as a great success. But if competitive bidding is predicated on supplying equipment at the lowest possible price, something has to give. And more likely than not, that something will be patient care.