Why does Mike Huckabee want Medicare to waste money?

What is comparative-effectiveness review? There are two answers to this question. The right answer, and Mike Huckabee?s answer.

The right answer is that comparative-effectiveness review is a fancy term for studies that test multiple drugs or treatments against one another to see which one works best ? studies, in other words, that compare them for effectiveness. That way, when doctors go to prescribe something for you, they?re prescribing the thing that?ll do the most to help you at the lowest cost. My hunch is that most patients think comparative-effectiveness review is already how medicine works, and would be dismayed to learn how little good evidence there is behind what their doctor is telling them.

Mike Huckabee?s answer is that comparative-effectiveness review is the seed from which ?the poisonous tree of death panels will grow,? which is, if not a sensical image, at least a vivid one. CER will become our version of Britain?s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, which in Huckabee?s telling, ?decides who lives and who dies based on age and cost of treatment.?

You?ll notice that nowhere in Huckabee?s description of comparative-effectiveness review is the ?comparing for effectiveness? part mentioned. Instead, Huckabee is engaged in an effort to take evidence-based evaluation of different treatments off the table. And Huckabee isn?t alone in this effort. In January of 2009, Mitch McConnell, Jon Kyl, and Pat Roberts cosponsored legislation banning Medicare from using comparative-effectiveness review data to make coverage decisions. If I?m remembering this correctly, the GOP managed to get language along these lines into the stimulus.

So at the moment, the Republican Party?s position is that Medicare and Medicaid cannot use studies measuring the effectiveness of different medical treatments when deciding what to cover or not cover. Another way to say that is they?ve decided against saving money by making better decisions about what to buy. Their remaining options are to save money by paying doctors and hospitals less than things currently cost, or to save money by giving seniors and Medicaid recipients less than they currently need. With smart rationing off the table, dumb rationing is all we have left.

Source: http://feeds.voices.washingtonpost.com/click.phdo?i=5ee5b2e1196426d83fc5fffd928db8fd

South Korea Chalkboards Extradition European banks Christmas Clint Eastwood