I read with trepidation the news that Cigna has reached a "deal" with NY attorney-general Andrew Cuomo.  Earlier this month, the "Cuomortician" of New York health care lashed out at Cigna and other health insurers' plans to rank physician quality.  Now, we learn that everything is hunky-dory.

Cigna - never charged with any crime in this regard - has agreed to use not only cost as the criterion for ranking doctors (not that it ever did so), but report three measurements for its networked physicians: cost, quality, and a combination of both.

It's not at all clear how this is different from that which Cigna initially proposed to do.  So,.....what's the point?  Buried at the bottom of the press release is the news that Cigna will give a sweet $100,000 to a still unnamed "independent organization" to research ways to improve the presentation of this data to help consumers understand the system - whatever that means.

How much of that $100,000 the "independent organization" will return to Mr. Cuomo's campaign coffers is, needless to say, left for speculation; as is the identity of the trial lawyers who will set it up in order to establish a portfolio of "gotchas" to nail Cigna for inadequate "transparency" as this thing rolls along.

It's not news that big business is happy to shake-off a little shake-down like this with a bit of green.  More disappointing is the positive response of the American Medical Association's President-elect, Nancy Nielsen, who claims that it "will influence other states to implement careful and independent oversight and evaluation of physician performance measurement projects."

Organized medicine has strongly resisted insurers' programs to rank its members.  Nevertheless physicians, more than any profession, should know better than to get into bed with trial lawyers.  It only encourages them.