Talk Radio News Service: News, Politics, Media

By Annie Berman -- Talk Radio News Service

U.S. Senate Republican Whip Jon Kyl (Ariz.) has introduced the “The Preserving Access to Targeted, Individualized, and Effective New Treatments and Services (PATIENTS) Act of 2009. The bill prohibits the federal government from using “comparative effectiveness research,” to determine the care of a patient based on cost rather than on effectiveness.

“Government should not be funding research which it is then going to use in one way or another to ration health care for Americans to decide what diagnostics, treatments, or prescriptions, or care can be allowed under any kind of federal program,” Kyl said.

The Senator explained that the problem with using “comparative effectiveness research” (CER) is that not all treatments are appropriate for all patients; even if a particular treatment is more cost effective, it may not be effective in treating a patient’s particular ailment.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, also known as the “Stimulus Bill,” allocated $1.1 billion for comparative effectiveness research. However, the stimulus bill did not include any securities to prevent that money from being used to ration health care. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has announced that it would use the stimulus money for this specific purpose.

“Quality Adjusted Life Year (QALY). That’s how they evaluate your life...They say that your life is worth a certain amount. And if the cost of a particular treatment exceeds that amount, sorry. You don’t get it. And that varies with your age,” said Kyl.

“I don’t want America to begin rationing care to our citizens in the same way other countries do. The first step on that slippery slope is the CER...We need to stop that research from being used by the federal government for treatment or care.”