Make no doubt about it, this legislation has opened a door that will be difficult to close.  It is also a slippery slope to rationing health care based on cost-benefit analysis versus care of individual patients.  The agenda, stated or not, is to herd physicians into a federal employee mindset, with dictates about what is and what is not allowed.  Physicians, by oath, are advocates for patients.  Individual patients.  When you are sick, you want a physician caring for you individually, not you as part of a demographic group or entry on a balance sheet.  We must resist this move to the “dark side” of medical care and decision making.  Such actions have led in the past to sad moments in medical history most typified by the atrocity of  Nazi euthanasia and eugenics programs . . . obi jo

Expert criticizes proposed “comparative effectiveness” entity for new medical products
Dr. Scott Gottlieb, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, wrote, “In Britain, a government agency evaluates new medical products for their ‘cost effectiveness’ before citizens can get access to them. … President Obama and House Democrats embrace the creation of a similar ‘comparative effectiveness’ entity that will do research on drugs and medical devices.” While they say “that they don’t want this to morph into a British-style agency that restricts access to medical products based on narrow cost criteria,” Dr. Gottlieb contends that “provisions tucked into the fiscal stimulus bill betray their real intentions.” He noted that the “centerpiece of their plan is $1.1 billion…for studies to compare different drugs and devices to ‘save money and lives.’ Report language accompanying the House stimulus bill says that ‘more expensive’ medical products ‘will no longer be prescribed.'” Furthermore, the former nominee as  “Health Czar” Tom Daschle previously argued “that the only way to reduce spending is by allocating medical products based on ‘cost effectiveness.'”

read more @ http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123241385775896265.html

http://www.aei.org

Stimulus bill includes funding for comparative effectiveness research
The $787 billion economic stimulus bill approved by Congress will, for the first time, provide substantial amounts of money for the federal government to compare the effectiveness of different treatments for the same illness. Specifically, researchers will receive $1.1 billion to compare drugs, medical devices, surgery, and other ways of treating specific conditions. The bill creates a council of up to 15 federal employees to coordinate the research, and to advise President Obama and Congress on how to spend the money. The program responds to a growing concern that doctors have little or no solid evidence of the value of many treatments. Supporters of the research hope it will eventually save money by discouraging the use of costly, ineffective treatments.  Critics worry that the legislation would allow the federal government to intrude in a person’s healthcare by enforcing clinical guidelines and treatment protocols.

read more @ http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/16/health/policy/16health.html?hp