Guest Column: The Road to Healthcare Rationing
April 30, 2009
by: Rep. John Shadegg (R-Ariz.)

Government WasteWatch, Spring 2009

The pace of Congressional spending has been absolutely breathtaking. We are witnessing government growth, inefficiency, and waste on a historic and unprecedented scale.  Every day brings another bailout, another stimulus, another hundred billion dollar government adventure financed by the American taxpayer.  But Washington spends faster than Main Street earns – and so Congress has plunged our nation into a chasm of debt.

Americans, of course, are up in arms, decrying this tidal wave expansion of government unimaginable only months ago.  Among the many egregious spending provisions, however, one has gone mostly unnoticed – a sly $1.1 billion provision slipped into the stimulus that sets the stage for government rationing of health care in America.

It’s called “comparative effectiveness research.”  While it sounds innocent enough, the worst big-government programs always do. In reality, comparative effectiveness research is a dangerous tool bureaucrats plan to use to decide which medical treatments Americans can or cannot have.

Everyday in countries with government-run health care systems, this research is used as an excuse to deny patients life-saving medical care – whatever the bureaucrats, not doctors and their patients, think is appropriate. The health care board of the United Kingdom has repeatedly denied breakthrough drugs to citizens suffering with breast cancer, Alzheimer’s, and even multiple sclerosis on “comparative effectiveness” grounds.  In other words, the British government – and other countries across the world with medical rationing – have stripped citizens of the freedom to consult with their doctors and make their own health care decisions.

Linda O’Boyle was a 64 year-old mother of three and grandmother of four living in Essex, England.  In 2006, O’Boyle was diagnosed with cancer.  After invasive surgery and six weeks of chemotherapy, doctors told O’Boyle they were running out of options.

They believed, however, that a new drug called Cetuximab would prolong her life.  O’Boyle applied to Britain’s health care rationing board – The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, or NICE – for permission to pursue the treatment.

She was refused.

Linda and her husband Brian, both faithful employees of Britain’s National Health Service, did the only thing they could.  They spent thousands of dollars to purchase the drug themselves.  But the National Health Service does not allow its patients to pursue private treatment, so they cut off her chemotherapy and other care.  That’s right – because she used her own resources to buy the needed drug, the government cut off all her other care and treatment. A short time later, Linda O’Boyle died.

Her story is sad, but it is not unique.  In 2004, 17,000 people in Great Britain died as a result of poor or untimely treatment.  800,000 people in Canada are waiting months for procedures that in America would take only a few weeks.  Countless people would be alive today but for the fact their governments denied them the procedures, medicines, and care they needed.

The $1.1 billion for comparative effectiveness research appropriated this year in the so-called “stimulus bill” brings us closer to government-controlled health care like that of the United Kingdom and Canada.  Congressman David Obey, the Democrat chairman of the House Appropriations Committee and one of the authors of the comparative effectiveness provision, has already acknowledged how this research will be used. Just read his words about this provision taken from the committee report on the stimulus:

“Those items, procedures, and interventions… that are found to be less effective and in some cases, more expensive, will no longer be prescribed.” 

This ominous language is even more unnerving when one considers the Democrats’ announced plans to create a new government-run health care plan this year;   it has been estimated that up to 120 million Americans will be pushed from private coverage into this new government-run plan if enacted into law. 

Democrats have argued that comparative effectiveness research won’t be used to ration treatments for individuals in government-run programs.  But does anyone honestly think federal bureaucrats won’t use this research to make coverage determinations once Americans are enrolled in a government-run plan?  Rather than letting you and your doctor make decisions about what treatment is best for you, a government bureaucrat will decide whether an “investment” in your health care is worth the cost.  

In fact, acting National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Raynard S. Kington testified on March 26th that their agency may use money from the economic stimulus to fund grants for research that includes comparisons of the costs of the treatments involved.  We have given government the means to justify health care rationing; it’s only a matter of time until they start limiting access to treatment.   

If proponents of government-run health care have their way, Americans too will lose their health care freedom – our government will ration care for us and our loved ones.  This will not happen overnight and it will not happen all at once.  But Congress has already taken significant steps towards a complete government-takeover of our health care system.  If we stay on our present course, it will happen.  To ensure this future doesn’t come to pass, Americans must remind President Obama of the truism that nothing is so expensive as “free” medical care from the government – a cost paid not only in dollars, but in lives.