[gdpawel]

$21 billion to provide a 60% subsidy of health care insurance premiums for the unemployed under the COBRA program; $87 billion to help states with Medicaid; $19 billion to modernize health information technology systems; $10 billion for health research and construction of National Institutes of Health facilities.

One aspect of the monies was to fund a comparative-effectiveness program to assess whether or not treatments (mostly the newer targeted regimens) are really better than older treatments. Decisions are being made about what cancer treatments patients can actually afford.

Comparative research is not rationing health care. The research funding doled out in the recent Stimulus Package would go to the National Institute of Health, the Agency for Healthcare Quality and Research and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to focus on producing the best unbiased science possible.

Comparative research has the potential to tell us which drugs and treatments are safe, and which ones work. This is not information that the private sector will generate on its own, or that the "industry" wants to share. Companies want to control the data, how it is reviewed, evaluated, and whether the public and government find out about it and use it. Just about the way they are controlling data now.

Comparative-effectiveness research is not something for patients to be afraid of. It can help doctors and patients, through research, studies and comparisons, undertand which drugs, therapies and treatments work and which don't. Nothing in the legislation will have the government monitoring treatments in order to guide your doctor's decisions. Doctors will still have the ultimate decision, along with the patient.

Yet as anyone with even a passing familiarity with the medical science and medical economics literature understands, comparisons are rarely black and white. Most medical technologies only help a fraction of patients. Most medical technologies have some risks associated with their use. Comparative cost-effectiveness analysis is an important tool for accurately evaluating those benefits and risks.

Another aspect of the monies is the funding for health information technology in the recovery package is projected to create over 200,000 jobs and a down-payment on broader health care reform. Converting an antiquated paper system to a computer system by making the health care system more efficient.

The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that one-third of $2 trillion spent annually on health care in America may be unnecessary due to inefficiencies in the old system such as exessive paperwork. Investing in infrastructure like Health IT would help improve the quality of America's health care.

Currently, fewer than 25% of hospitals and fewer than 20% of doctor's offices employ health information technology systems. Researchers have found that implementing Health IT would result in a mean annual savings of $40 billion over a 15-year period by improving health outcomes through care management, increasing efficiency and reducing medical errors.

Investing in Health IT would also help primary care physicians who often bear the brunt of tech implementation without seeing immediate benefits, affording the infrastructure for expanison. Some PCPs are ahead of the IT curve but cannot afford the richness of its expansion. They need this important infrastructure.