‘Best Laid Plans’ of Health Care Bureaucrats Go Awry on Rationing
by Capitol ConfidentialIt’s hard not to imagine that some bureaucrats that the National Institute’s of Health were not thinking of Robert Burns’ “best laid plans of mice and men” when they heard the results of a recent “comparative effectiveness” study of the drugs Lucentis and Avastin.
“Comparative effectiveness” studies are the shoehorn for government interference between the doctor/patient relationship. These studies allow bureaucrats to dictate health care decisions that should be made by doctors by determining that certain drugs or treatments are comparable and the cheaper drug becomes the one the government covers for treatment. The ObamaCare takeover of our health care system appropriated nearly $1 billion for these studies.
The National Institute for Health (NIH) initiated a study into the “comparative effectiveness” of the drugs Lucentis and Avastin – both made by the same manufacture. The basis of the study was to determine whether Avastin could be used as a substitute for Lucentis when treated macular degeneration. Avastin was never approved by the FDA for macular degeneration while Lucentis was tried, tested and approved for such purpose.
The initial test results showed the danger of such a strategy.
The Wall Street Journal reports on an analysis by the Johns Hopkins University, scheduled to be presented in early May shows the off-label use of “Avastin showed a statistically significant increased risk for mortality and hemorrhagic stroke compared to Lucentis. The abstract indicated that the use of Avastin showed an 11% higher risk in overall mortality and a 57% higher risk of hemorrhagic cerebrovascular accident. “Data from this Medicare claims analysis suggest differences in the safety profile of Avastin versus Lucentis,” the researchers concluded. “
The initial results of this test show some of the pitfalls of bureaucrats dictating the care and treatment of patients. Senator Jon Kyl has introduced legislation that will protect and preserve the doctor’s ability to make these determinations.
The PATIENT’s Act will ensure that the determination of doctors will not be substituted by the dictates of bureaucrats and cost should never substitute for quality and effectiveness. Not all patients’ respond to a certain drug the same way. Doctor’s are in the best position to determine what drug is best for each individual patient. The PATEINT’s Act will enshrine that fact into law.
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22 Comments
That's a back-door way to get Avastin kicked off the market permanently: Throw it in a bunch of different studies (next we'll see Avastin vs. aspirin). When it fails, point to that as "proof" Avastin shouldn't be used for the disease it was originally designed for and approved.
Obamacare, like the person it is named after is a complete and utter failure.
Liberal Government Plan:
Get as many hooked onto government programs
Eliminate all other competitors
Ration what they then give out
Costs go up
Quality goes down
Works every time it's tried…..
The Government needs to get out of the Doctor/Patient relationship entirely. Taken to Ad Absurdum, if there are no doctors, is health care still a "Right"? I'd much prefer a doctor to make my health determination, rather than some sanitation engineer who was conscripted to the job.
The patient and doctor who can make free and informed choices, without fear of government sanction, is the best modern medicine can offer us. Let it be, Obama!
You are right on in your assessment. The government will twist and torture numbers and information until they get the result they want.
What is relevant today is the budget discussion.
The Big picture BigG misses is the ire that will be directed at the Tea Party if the government shuts down. Boehner is already soft pedaling about how policy issues like Planned Parenthood and the EPA were valid targets. We know what Reid is saying. It will prove to be a huge failure of political strategy that the House (Libertarian / TP) Republicans chose incendiary riders that are straw men in HR1. Their dollars are nothing and they will wear this failure, as a result.
I'm every bit for reduced spending by big numbers, but how naive they were to ruin it for themselves, and so many other fiscally sane voters, by pumping abortion and the EPA into this debate. In a few days, this will not look so smart.
The Tea Party needs someone far more savvy than Bachman to prevent the efforts of BOTH Democrats and establishment Republicans from succeeding. Get ready for another round of TP Scapegoating…
It is one more example of the old axiom, FIGURES DON'T LIE BUT LIARS TRY TO FIGURE. They just keep twisting facts and figures to obfuscate to their truth.
No, health care is not a right; it's a service provided by another. If you deem it a right, then you reduce the providers of that service to the status of slaves.
No, because Obama has made the troops part of the issue. The public won't have anything to do with someone who starts wars and then deems the people who fight them "nonessential."
So let's see, for the advanced cancer patient the question is I can die or I can take this drug and potentially live longer but at an increased risk of stroke … I guess in the eyes of the government health care bureaucrats, it's more compassionate to tell those people to jsut die of cancer rather than risk having a stroke.
http://www.capitalismbookstore.com/Affordable-Uni...
No taxpayer dollars required.
Real cost controls.
No care rationing.
The list goes on and on.
There's even a one-page talking points memo on it for those of you who are too lazy to read the white paper: http://www.capitalismbookstore.com/HealthPlusTalk....
I actually have to disagree with this article. While I agree that Obamacare will result in rationing, the comparative effectiveness studies are needed. I am a scientist who has done drug development. In a nut shell the pharmaceutical industry does not want to compare their drugs to others for the same indication because if it does not work as well, they will lose sales. Without the data, they can claim their drug is as good as the others. Sadly, when some of these comparison studies were done with some new drugs and decades old drugs, it was found the new drugs were no better. So a lot of money was wasted on the new drug when the generic would suffice. I don't want to stiffle innovation in drug development, but we need to know what works. Paying 100 times the cost for a new drug that actually is not better than cheaper drugs is a tremendous waste we cannot afford. The industry, of which I am part, needs to put at least some focus on patient health in addition to amping up their profits.
Then let's say it isn't about abortion. It's about defunding freeloaders. As regards the EPA, every day they find something else that they think is dangerous. They are only trying to justify their existence, and protect their parasitic status.
Thank you.
It's important to include issues like funding for Planned Parenthood and EPA. Along with cutting spending, a principle needs to be established: that there are things government has no business spending other people's money on, even if the cost is only $1. The fact that this principle has long been disregarded has resulted in the notion that it is legitimate for government to pay for anything and everything the freeloaders may desire.
The government is bankrupt. Expect more and more crazy rationing systems and other schemes to pop up as those in power try to cling to it. They cannot admit the truth, they cannot fix things without admitting the truth so logic dictates conditions will worsen. Prepare for a tempest approaches. Our strength lies in our solidarity with our neighbors and that will be what saves people.
In capitalism it works like this. The company that produces for the lowest price generally wins. If some agreed negative consequence to what produces the lowest price is exploited by one, the others usually follow. This happens so often you may as well call it a Law of Capitalism and it is why we have the alphabet soup of agencies we do. Because many corps are so big, and could care so little about the consequences of what they do, that punishment never comes without big brother. This assumes their resources don't get so big that they simply hide the problems, or hire people to turn a blind eye.
That is typical progressive BS, you are a failed product of the state funded union run madrasses that now pass for publuc education these days….. America WANTS these Alphabet fifedomes like the EPA cut down to size if not eliminated altogether in many cases…..
And you and all your progressive friends are just whislting past the graveyard….
A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned – this is the sum of good government.
Thomas Jefferson
Yes, it's easier said than done. Doing the right thing isn't going to be easy, but it needs to be done.
In a free country, the company that can deliver what pleases the most people, whether that be lower price, better quality, greater safety, or whatever, will succeed. If a company cheats or displeases my neighbor, I'll hear about it, and take my own business somewhere else.
Companies and governments are run by humans, some honest and some corrupt. If a company wants me to do or buy something I don't want, I can blow it off and go my way. But if the government wants me to do or buy something I don't want, and I blow it off, men with guns will threaten, imprison or kill me.
If the government suppresses coercion and enforces contracts, corrupt companies are no threat to me; they have to please me to get what they want. But when government makes all the rules, it is a threat because it will harm me if I don't do what it wants. Corrupt people in companies collude with corrupt people in governments to use the laws, regulations, police, guns, courts and jails of government to give advantage to some and disadvantage to others. Corrupt people are always a problem. A big government makes them a bigger problem. We need a small government with less power and money.
What we might agree on is not wishing to be forced to do anything. Its this idea that government monopolizes this trait that burns me most.
"If a company wants me to do or buy something I don't want, I can blow it off and go my way."
What if you enjoy over the air television and the cable companies succeed in killing it?
What about paying a competitive rate for health insurance when your local market has maybe two insurers?
What about sitting down with your bank after your home plummets 50% in value and then having a fair discussion about loan principal?
My point, to be consistent with you, is that the growth of massive institutions is forcing us to do things which in a more locally competitive market we would not face. Inconsistent with you, is that I believe government exists to do something about it. There were populist successes in Fin Reg, for example, that are hard to see benefitting anybody but the public. They weren't the outgrowth of some special interest.
To put so much faith that someone beholden to shareholders, over customers, is going to serve the customer first, is naive to me. You don't kill capitalism for this reason, but maybe think about how unchecked the behavior of the goliaths has become and will accelerate towards, if we shrink government the wrong way.
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