Health care very important

[fullofbeans]

I do not live in the US so I am not directly involved but I do just want to say that cost effectiveness is a terrible concept. What price do you put on hope ?

In my opinion we should scrutenise the profit from pharmaceutical co and hospital charges before telling people that they are not worth such and such treatment.. The article says that the European use the cost effectiveness thingy, well this is simply wrong since in France for example cancer treatment have been ring-fenced which means cost is never a issue, but because the governement is buying they negociate cheaper prices..

If this is what is happening (hiding this bill inside the stimulus package) maybe I do not understand it well then I have to say that I am very disappointed with the way this law is being pushed through.. I hope that we are all missinformed about this, man I am so annoyed for you.. but I hope that I have completly missed the boat and not understood it because the contrary would be awful..

[gdpawel]

The venue at a recent Institute of Medicine forum on assessing and improving value in cancer care, was the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry's efforts to beat back efforts at cost control in cancer care, which is increasingly seen as the next big income generator for Big Pharma. No wonder the "industry" is worried.

They put together a coalition, the so-called Partnership to Improve Patient Care, which includes the lobbying arms of the drug, device and biotechnology industries as well as patient-advocacy groups, most of which accept pharmaceutical industry donations, and medical-professional societies, to lobbying Congress to give the "industry" a major say over how it will be run.

The drug and medical device industries are mobilizing to gut a provision in the stimulus bill that would spend money on research comparing medical treatments. The research funding would be doled out to the National Institutes of Health and other government bodies 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.

Do publicly traded companies have a seat on the governing board of the Securities and Exchange Commission? Should Boeing and Airbus be given the right to determine the scope of the National Transportation Safety Board's inquiry into airplane crashes? It is simply bad governance to give "industry" a seat at the table when officials decide what comparative effectiveness studies will get done.