Look at what the Guardian has done with data (thanks, Noah Brier):
We have compiled our top sets of publicly-available data for you to use free. Explore the links below, visualise and mash them together. Then, let us know what you’ve done.
They even have worldwide health care spending data for all to enjoy.
Now take a gander at how the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services shares its data. There’s no reproducable text worth sharing here. However, this is what’s important: it’s confusing and it’s not free.
Freely available data allows people to do marvelous stuff. The mashing phenomenon has been around for awhile now; the fruits of its collective labor have produced some cool things. The same goes for data visualization. The Guardian has created its Open Platform to encourage participation.
CMS should do the same.