.....because some “govt” study shows that cancer treatments are not effective on that group....
In the Soviet Union, Stalin set up a guy named Lysenko to direct their agriculture programs. He conducted ‘research’ on techniques to grow crops. It didn’t matter that his so called research could not be verified by other scientist or agricultural workers. His conclusions were considered to be the law of the land. They had very poor crop production under Lysenko, and people that tried to oppose him were persecuted in various ways
I believe all this crap about using research to determine the ‘best’ ways to conduct medicine is really a way to place the absolute power into the hands of a few gov’t officials. Once they make the statement that “research shows...”, or “our study suggests....”, then nobody will be able to challenge (legally) their dictates. This is also the direction that public education is headed.
Yep.....and, as taxpayers, we will pay for those studies that will be used to define the health care coverage. This law is truly evil.
You are right about this being a concentration of power in the hands of the Executive branch. Soviet Russia isn't the only place this happened. In Nazi Germany, one of Hitler's famous early acts was the passing of an "Enabling Law" which made anything he decreed legal and the Law of the land.
Moreover, one doesn't have to go abroad to find a situation where conclusions based on flimsy facts are used by the political authorities as an excuse for policies with broad and long-lasting effects. Here in the US, a single study on mortgage lending in Boston (later questioned) was used as the justification for forcing banks to make loans to unqualified minority buyers as a condition for renewal of their charters. The banks knew the loans were subpar, and eagerly bundled them up into mortgage backed securities for resale. This was part of the "lend to anyone to increase homeownership" snowball. It was inititiated by the the Community Reinvestment Act (passed during the Carter years and reinvigorated under Clinton), and supported by GWB's "ownership society" promotion of home ownership.
The regulation of the snowball was woefully clueless and inadequate. We are still cleaning up, and will be for another decade.
In fact, we may never clean up, because Obama's gang is urging the FHA to lend with 3.5% down, and starting a whole new cycle of under-capitalized home ownership.