Hospital execs tell the Boston Globe that payment reform will inevitably lead to patients having fewer options when it comes to choosing specialists and hospitals. The warnings — that cutting costs will surely lead to restrictions on patients — are ominous:

“You can’t reap these savings without limiting patients’ choices in some way,’’ said Paul Levy, chief executive of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. “It’s a huge issue, it’s huge.’’ Dr. James Mongan, president of Partners HealthCare, a Beth Israel Deaconess competitor, agreed that it wouldn’t “work without some restriction on choice.’’