Peter Pitts Finds a $1.1 Billion Word In the 2010 Recovery Act
One of Rush Limbaugh's "undeniable truths" is that "words mean things." When inconspicuously hidden in legislation, words can mean a lot of money to you and me.
Peter Pitts, President of the Center for Medicine In the Pubic Interest, has an interesting piece in the Washington Examiner about how a one word change in a press release by the Health and Human Services Department indicates they intend to do something entirely different with $1.1 Billion of your money than what Congress authorized. From the column:
The Recovery Act of 2010 gave the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality $1.1 billion to conduct, according to the Health and Human Services Department news release, "comparative effectiveness research" into various "healthcare interventions."
Except that's not what Congress funded. Per the act, that $1.1 billion was earmarked for clinical comparative effectiveness, not comparative effectiveness research. And this is not splitting hairs. Enter cost-think.
Comparative effectiveness advocates favor large-scale trials that "compare" drugs and other health care "technologies," striving to show which medicines are most effective for any given disease state. Comparative effectiveness means cost effectiveness.
Clinical effectiveness, on the other hand, measures outcomes on an individual patient level. Clinical effectiveness studies help us to understand how to design treatments based on patient variation rather than cost. This approach represents the very definition of personalized medicine.
Read the rest of Peter's piece for an explanation of how Congress intended money for research into personalized medicine for you will be turned into a cost related excuse for rationing medicine for us all.
Fascinating!
- Comment (5)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (1)
Comments :
May '10
Re: Peter Pitts Finds a $1.1 Billion Word In the 2010 Recovery Act
Tommy,
You are a fount of joy today.
It seems like no matter how we make steps forward, the left always has a way for us to still lose. Always, there is a defeat to be handed to us.
Win in court, the Admin ignores it. Someone on our side has a gaff, and they lose it all; on their side, it is nothing. One side does 7 million dollars of damage, no big deal. Our side is peaceful, we are racists.
I just don't see how we can win. The socialist won ages ago, and we fight a rearguard action against an overwhelming force.
Re: Peter Pitts Finds a $1.1 Billion Word In the 2010 Recovery Act
Thanky Bryan!
It gets frustrating - I know what you mean.
Some days you just have to stop for a belt of whiskey then get back to the fight.
Where'd I put that bottle....
May '10
Re: Peter Pitts Finds a $1.1 Billion Word In the 2010 Recovery Act
I am a Jack Daniels man myself.
I guess, I have to keep going on with my faith that the future is tangible. We are America. We are still the greatest nation ever.
Oct '10
Re: Peter Pitts Finds a $1.1 Billion Word In the 2010 Recovery Act
I would hope that this particular abuse of administrative implementation of statutory law, now that it has seen the light of day, will be addressed by the Legislature. It does point out, however, a significant problem in our federal system that has been growing since the time of the New Deal, namely the Congress's delegation of power to the Executive branch overseeing the various federal agencies to write the administrative law (regulations) implementing the programs authorized by statute.
Prior to the growth of the bureaucracies created by New Deal legislation and expanded incrementally by nearly every administration, with the possible exception or Reagan, ever since, the administrative law implementing the statutory law was also written by Congress.
Maybe it's time Congress stopped delegating that power to the Executive. This would require a lot more effort on the part of law makers to deal with the real world problems of implementing the ideas they come up with. Hopefully this would inhibit the growth of "government" at its source in the Legislative branch, rather than trying to cut off the individual hydra heads of the Executive bureaucracy.
May '10
Re: Peter Pitts Finds a $1.1 Billion Word In the 2010 Recovery Act
I agree with that.
What is a newly elected POTUS simply said "Until Congress approves each regulation as a specific law, I will direct the Executive Departments to not enforce them". Tax Law would still operate. Would anything else?