Under attack is a provision that is in the package that will help your doctor be better informed and more effective at the job they signed up to do in the first place - taking care of you and your family.
Comparative Effectiveness Research:
At issue is something called "Comparative Effectiveness Research" which basically means giving your doctor access to the latest research on what treatments and therapies work and which don't. This also helps doctors know which treatments are more expensive than others, and helps both patients and doctors decide if there is a cheaper treatment that is just as effective. As a doctor and the husband of a doctor, I know how important it is to have solid scientific research to make critical decisions for my patients.
This research will help doctors choose the best treatment for their patients' situation and help them make more informed choices rather than risk prescribing less effective or even potentially harmful treatments.
Essentially, in order to control costs and provide patients with better care as we reform health care, the Federal Government will fund and disseminate research that evaluates the effectiveness of different treatments and medicines. This research will give doctors and patients better choices, and most importantly better health care for their money.
This is a common sense idea that should have been put in place a long ago.
When I was practicing medicine, having greater access to scientific evidenced-based research would have been truly helpful in guiding me to make the best medical decisions for my patients.
If an inexpensive pill that has been around a long time works substantially better than a brand new, highly-advertised and thus far more expensive pill - doctors should have that information at hand when we prescribe medications to our patients. When I do something for a patient, I want the scientific research that tells me its the best course for my patient. But the far right, led by people like Rush Limabaugh, hopes to somehow convince Americans that more and better research is a bad thing.
Medicine is and should always be science based - not driven by ideology.
Mr. Limbaugh and his cohorts would have you believe that this research will be used to deny needed care to your great Aunt May and be run by the politburo. But the Bill passed by Congress states right up front that the Government can not make coverage decisions based on this research.
I was surprised to see Senator Coburn (R-Ok) who is also a doctor make a statement against medical research which in part stated "this bill lays the groundwork for a Soviet-style Federal Health Board that will put bureaucrats and politicians in charge of our nation's health care system." Sadly, it seems that Senator Coburn has his political hat on and not his white coat when he relies on Rush Limbaugh to "help" his patients.
This claptrap is really about the far right laying the ground work for a far greater and more sustained attack on the Democrats' attempt to fix our health care system. As we move forward with the American people to finally fulfill the promise of Harry Truman, who over sixty years ago suggested that every American ought to have a reasonable health care plan, we will rely on the voters to remind the right wing that change is what we promised, and change is what we will deliver.
Their opposition is about politics at its worst and their desire to make sure that the new administration and the Congress do not get a "win"
In these rough economic times, we have got to do better than the same old scare tactics and games for political gains. It's time to fix our health care system and it's time for common sense and honesty.
remember that story?
check that one out..
FAR too many doctors and patients think: new + expensive = better. The situation is made even worse when "somebody else" (be it good private insurance or government) pays the bill.
Patients seem to have forgotten that physicians PRACTICE the ART of medicine, instead thinking them more like omniscient robots following a perfectly described science. At the other end, far too many physicians seem to have the idea that their patients are complete idiots who, if truth be known, hope for a screw-up so they can sue.
I recently saved a family member's insurance company a few thousand by applying the "dictionary treatment" to a ganglion cyst--a treatment recommended to me years ago by my physician who said, "I can only tell you, I can't do it like my dad."
After a good quantity of fine brandy, my grandfather-in-law (urologist and former president of AMA) and I had a very deep conversation about the state of medical practice. What sticks in my mind more than anything was his lament that, "I used to just ask, 'Do you pee a good stream?'. Now I have to use a very expensive machine that doesn't really give me any more information."
Where I used to live, southwest Virginia, there is an insurance company that is gaining ground on having an all-out monopoly.
They started with insurance, then bought out the local doctors, then bought all the local hospitals, then they bought a rescue squad.
I would guess that even the life alert helicopter used to transport the most serious to a bigger hospital belongs to them.
Some people might think that's grand. I don't.
The doctors that I used to see sold out to them and the last visit lasted 7 minutes, and with NO tests, cost $70 and that was 6 years ago.
Needless to say, that was THE LAST visit I will ever make to that particular doctor's office.
And this kind of situation would not be happening if someone/somewhere wasn't allowing it to happen by ignoring the problem.
It's time to nominate Dr. Howard Dean as Secretary of Health and Human Services!
We have a doctor who has no clue about my husband's TBI & Fibromyalgia. Also, in almost 6 years, he's checked his heart and lungs exactly 3 times...which could have contributed to his congestive heart failure attack 3 weeks ago. We need more information available to doctors with the click of a button, not 12000 page books that they have no time to read.
When my husband was in the hospital, he had a team of doctors, plus as much viable information as possible on a computer based information highway that aided in his treatment and having a stent put in. Without this, other decisions may have been made. I've lived the access these doctors had and can't say enough about it.
I'm also tired of people trying to take away any sort of medical treatment to those of us who aren't insured. I need meds and treatment, but can't get it because of my being 2 years away from Medicare, which my husband is on. A lot of us will die because we can't get the treatment we need. This is an unvelieveable state of affairs for the "richest country in the world". Richness doesn't mean money.
Access to health care saves you a lot of money down the road.
Such access to health care ought to be a human right in any society, which considers itself civilized.
The US health care spending is about twice of that in Western Europe and is still not able to provide the universal health care Western European citizens take for granted. So either the US is terribly inefficient or thoroughly corrupt. Probably both, but the vested predatory unregulated financial interest embodied by insurance companies and private health care organizations in combination with the US typical lack of oversight and regulation are the root cause of this outrage.
HEALTH INSURANCE COMPANY PROFITS IN 2007:
1. UnitedHealth Group -- $ 4.654 BILLION. UnitedHealth Group owns Oxford, PacifiCare, IBA, AmeriChoice, Evercare, Ovations, MAMSI and Ingenix, a healthcare data company
2. WellPoint -- $ 3.345 BILLION. Wellpoint owns BLUES across the US, including Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Wisconsin, Empire HealthChoice Assurance, Healthy Alliance, and many others
3. Aetna Inc. -- $ 1.831 BILLION
4. CIGNA Corp -- $ 1.115 BILLION
5. Humana Inc. -- $ 834 million
6. Coventry Health Care -- $626 million. Coventry owns Altius, Carelink, Group Health Plan, HealthAmerica, OmniCare, WellPath, others
7. Health Net -- $ 194 million
The huge insurance company profits—BILLIONS EACH YEAR—could be used to provide quality healthcare for millions of people, and to pay physicians adequately for their work.
Get the insurance companies OUT of healthcare . The only solution is a NON-PROFIT SINGLE-PAYER HEALTHCARE SYSTEM – and the single payer should not be an insurance company or a group of insurance companies.
The solution? The United States National Health Insurance Act, H.R. 676. You can read about it here: http://www.healthcare-now.org/hr-676/
FOR MORE INFORMATION: http://www.insurancecompanyrules.org/learn_more/the_roster/ and http://www.pnhp.org/
We need a government sponsored health insurance for everybody, not just the rich and government employees.
I really hope the Dems keep it up and break the ugly state of politics the Republicans have imposed on the American public.
Consider seeing Moore's highly informative 'Sicko' showing how other nations like Canada, England, France, and even Cuba (i.e., a developing world country) have successfully nationalized their medical
care systems, providing equivalent and often superior care than our "famed" medical industry. Also, checkout Al Gore's 'Assault on Reason' - an amazing read outlining in contextual history how the Bush/Cheney/Limbaugh/Fox/Evangelical right essentially hijacked our government and continue to corrupt public debate in unprecedented ways.
Well done, Mr. 50 State Strategy Dean! Keep up the good work returning our government to the - well informed - people. Well done.