Critics of comparative effectiveness research, which the government has been funding for decades, claim that it will lead to treatment being approved or denied based on costs. Proponents say it will improve the quality of care and can, in some cases, show that more costly treatments aren't as effective as less expensive alternatives.
We can't predict what will happen in the future, but we can say that several claims being made about the impact of ...
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Certainly the best coverage I have seen to date of the controversy that Betsy McCaughey stirred on February 9, 2009 when she challenged language in the House version of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. In her Bloomberg piece, McCaughey voiced fears that the language of the bill would foster the creation of an intrusive federal bureaucracy that would negatively impact healthcare in America. A thorough examination of the final bill reveals that McCaughey's initial concerns, while overstated, did result in much needed clarifications that will at least partially safeguard the patient/doctor relationship as we move towards the creation of a national healthcare system. McCaughey has written a follow-up to the FactCheck article in which she amplifies and explains points that appeared in the original Bloomberg piece, qualifying some of them. (See LInks, below)
I interviewed Betsy McCaughey on February 19, 2009. I had expected to discover that she might indeed be as she has been described--a Republican ideologue intent on sabotaging any attempt to create a national healthcare system. I was relieved to discover that she is a registered Democrat, that she favors the creation of a well-designed national healthcare system--perhaps modeled on the French system--and that she is an extremely knowledgable woman dedicated to improving healthcare for all Americans.