One element of Obama’s health care proposal has been the implementation of comparison effectiveness research (CER) which investigates which practices produce the best medical outcomes and uses that research to help determine which medications and procedures ought to be covered by insurance.
Conservatives hate this idea because they complain it will lead to faceless, tyrannical bureaucrats dictating medical care. (Of course we already have faceless, tyrannical bureaucrats, working for insurance companies dictating medical care)
If fact Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), and Pat Roberts (R-Kansas) introduced a bill to prevent the government from using CER.
Paul Krugman explains why the Republican bill makes no sense
How bad is it? Let me count the ways.
1. Politicians who rail against wasteful government spending are taking action to prevent the government from reining in … wasteful spending.
2. Politicians who warn that the burden of entitlements is killing the federal budget are stepping in to block … the single most painless route to reducing the growth of entitlements.
3. They’re doing it in the name of avoiding “rationing of health care” … but they’re specifically addressing taxpayer-funded care. If you want to go out and buy a medically useless treatment, Medicare won’t stop you.
4. These same politicians are, of course, opposed to efforts to expand coverage. In other words, it’s evil for government to “ration care” by only paying for things that work; it is, however, perfectly OK, indeed virtuous, to ration care by refusing to pay for any care at all.
If it is wrong for the government to refuse to pay for useless medical procedures, why is it permissible for private insurance companies to do so? They do it routinely.
Tags: Comparison Effectiveness Research, conservatives and Health Care reform, Health care reform, Paul Krugman on Health Care Reform
