Stimulus Effect on Healthcare
So what does the stimulus bill really mean to Healthcare? To most Americans, the report of the House Committee on Appropriations would have seemed perfectly sensible.
The report explained the committee's rationale for including $1.1 billion for something called "comparative effectiveness research" in the massive economic stimulus bill. This is research done by doctors and statisticians who review large number of patient records to determine, for any particular disease, which treatments work best.
By knowing what works best, at an appropriate cost, these will be allowed and other more expensive procedures will no longer be paid for.
This really is not new as the National Institutes of Health, along with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, have been doing it for years, with a budget last year of about $335 million. But now with Democrats in power, this new effort should be a warning shot across the bow of a government run health system and the beginning of European-style health-care rationing.
The recent article "Ruin Your Health With the Obama Stimulus Plan," by Betsy McCaughey, former lieutenant governor of New York and adjunct senior fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute started a media outcry on both talk radio and mainstream news channels. They were warning and worried that the stimulus bill would put the government in control of what medical treatments you and your family would be allowed to receive and it set the stage for Megyn Kelly's interview with Sen. Arlen Specter, who was virtually browbeat by the anchor until he promised that "we are not going to let the federal government monitor what doctors do." But very few physicians believe this is a true statement.
These concerns have now been called right-wing radical rhetoric and other non-flattering terms, but the facts remain that once you start down this road, the potential for all of this is very real.
There are many examples from Britain and other countries with national healthcare of people being denied access to care, drugs and procedures, including some that are significantly more effective than other treatments and if this comparative effectiveness research is done badly, or if the results are used simply as an excuse to deny insurance coverage for all expensive treatments, then there will be ample cause for an uproar. We already see this with insurers such as Humana, United Healthcare and others.
The Government’s track record on cost effectiveness in any area should have everyone very worried.
Once this is implemented, someone in the Government will have to decide on what is cost effective and what is not and how much we are willing to spend to save a life. There is every reason to believe that this information will be used to ration care based on cost because the Government and every health care provider knows that we cannot afford to give every individual every treatment that is available.
Historically, our country has valued competition, embraced innovation, and respected markets, and has always been suspicious of politicians and government bureaucrats. But this stimulus package gives unwieldy power to the Government and will limit these things that have made our country and its citizens autonomous.
Knowing that the economy is in trouble because of poor fiscal choices has caused this rash decision that is poorly thought out and very secretive in its underlying agenda.
Beware Americans; you’ve not seen anything yet!
The report explained the committee's rationale for including $1.1 billion for something called "comparative effectiveness research" in the massive economic stimulus bill. This is research done by doctors and statisticians who review large number of patient records to determine, for any particular disease, which treatments work best.
By knowing what works best, at an appropriate cost, these will be allowed and other more expensive procedures will no longer be paid for.
This really is not new as the National Institutes of Health, along with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, have been doing it for years, with a budget last year of about $335 million. But now with Democrats in power, this new effort should be a warning shot across the bow of a government run health system and the beginning of European-style health-care rationing.
The recent article "Ruin Your Health With the Obama Stimulus Plan," by Betsy McCaughey, former lieutenant governor of New York and adjunct senior fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute started a media outcry on both talk radio and mainstream news channels. They were warning and worried that the stimulus bill would put the government in control of what medical treatments you and your family would be allowed to receive and it set the stage for Megyn Kelly's interview with Sen. Arlen Specter, who was virtually browbeat by the anchor until he promised that "we are not going to let the federal government monitor what doctors do." But very few physicians believe this is a true statement.
These concerns have now been called right-wing radical rhetoric and other non-flattering terms, but the facts remain that once you start down this road, the potential for all of this is very real.
There are many examples from Britain and other countries with national healthcare of people being denied access to care, drugs and procedures, including some that are significantly more effective than other treatments and if this comparative effectiveness research is done badly, or if the results are used simply as an excuse to deny insurance coverage for all expensive treatments, then there will be ample cause for an uproar. We already see this with insurers such as Humana, United Healthcare and others.
The Government’s track record on cost effectiveness in any area should have everyone very worried.
Once this is implemented, someone in the Government will have to decide on what is cost effective and what is not and how much we are willing to spend to save a life. There is every reason to believe that this information will be used to ration care based on cost because the Government and every health care provider knows that we cannot afford to give every individual every treatment that is available.
Historically, our country has valued competition, embraced innovation, and respected markets, and has always been suspicious of politicians and government bureaucrats. But this stimulus package gives unwieldy power to the Government and will limit these things that have made our country and its citizens autonomous.
Knowing that the economy is in trouble because of poor fiscal choices has caused this rash decision that is poorly thought out and very secretive in its underlying agenda.
Beware Americans; you’ve not seen anything yet!
Labels: healthcare, Obama, Stimulus
posted by Anonymous at 5:34 AM
2 Comments:
OK, we know what you don't like--what is your solution? Is it any more than doctors should make lots of money and the poor and/or uninsured should not be treated? Should medical care be restricted only to those who can afford increasingly expensive treatments? If you think that medical care should be available to, say, the children of poor or absent parents, how would that be accomplished?
I would like to see you propose something other than whining about your income and losing control of your practice. Plenty of other industries are heavily regulated for one reason or another (or, perhaps, too lightly regulated so far--see recent reports about the peanut processing).
Dear Anonymous,
I am not whining about my doctor's income. I am whining about the $100 bill I got from the plumber for 5 minutes of work on my septic tank. I am whining about the $100 charge for 5 minutes of snow removal on my parking lot. I am whining about the $75/hour total package a worker on the line at Ford makes. I am whining about the $140,000/year a first year pharmacist makes. I am whining about the $30/hour a radiology tech gets. My doctor gets a whopping $88.38 (3 months after he sees me) for spending an entire hour with me face-to-face, not to mention the time his staff spends scheduling things, calling me results, and billing my insurance. I can whine about a whole lot more than my doctor's salary but hopefully you get the point. If you do not, there is no hope for you.
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