Baseball's Mitchell Report has already become infamous for naming names of baseball elite who took or were somehow involved with steroid use. A bit of a formality as most fans are already well aware that baseball players juice up. Home runs fill the seats, and filling the seats means more money for everyone in the MLB.
Not so different from what brings in outpatients to clinics. A little bit of supply induced demand, a dash of fee-for-service, and a (generous) pinch of cost subsidization all generate large sums of revenue for the health care system.
But what is the fundamental issue? Quality. What makes a hit a hit in baseball? Does it still count if Barry Bonds hits the home run or is Edgar Renteria's HR% more real?
Same with quality in health care. What determines quality of care in medicine? What are the metrics? The standards? AHRQ has a lot to say but very little is agreed upon, let alone applied.
The Mitchell Report as I said earlier is a formality, just like all the quality boards and insurer rating systems. They make people aware of the issue, but don't do anything about it. Change happens through culture! Naming names, installing IT systems, ranking doctors are not the solutions, they are the precursors to a solution. They're advertising. But are they really doing a good job of getting our attention?