“This is step one. There were imperfections in this bill. All of you will continue to help point them out,” he said.

David Seltz, Gov. Deval Patrick’s special adviser helping to implement the new cost control law, said legislators talked about and wrestled with the topic for years. The challenge now is to take the “words on a piece of paper and make that a reality,” he said.

Seltz and other panelists said they were looking forward to the Health Policy Commission’s first meeting Friday. The 11-member board, created under the law, was named by Patrick, Attorney General Martha Coakley, and Auditor Suzanne Bump on Wednesday. The commission will replace the Health Care Quality and Cost Council, and will assume much of the new policy and regulation-setting authority under the new law for the certification of coordinated care organizations and patient-centered medical homes.

Along with Health and Human Services Secretary JudyAnn Bigby and Administration and Finance Secretary Jay Gonzalez, it includes doctors, health economists, business and union leaders. Seltz said the board will be separated from “politics and partisan bickering,” but will require input from payers, providers and patients to be successful.

Assistant Attorney General Tom O’Brien, chief of Attorney General Martha Coakley’s Health Care Division, said previously consumers were “isolated and insulated” from having to make health care decisions. Insurance companies made most of the decisions. As the system shifts, there is going to be some tension between the two sides. Patients will need to make decisions at the same time consolidation is going to challenge consumer choices, he said.

“That’s where the paradigm has to shift. Consumers have to be culturally involved and not isolated from the economics,” O’Brien said.

Consumer Affairs Undersecretary Barbara Anthony said she is most enthusiastic about the transparency piece of the new law because it allows consumers to find out the price of a procedure before they get it.

“There is no other commodity we buy as consumer that we don’t know the price of first,” she said. “You would not have someone come into your home to fix your kitchen without getting a price estimate or you would not leave your car with a mechanic.”