A Dissent on Comparative Effectiveness

Contra David Frum, I’m not sure we need “government bodies to compare the effectiveness of different healthcare practices”. In fact, my biggest worry is that government will stifle innovation.

Contra David Frum, I’m not sure we need “government bodies to compare the effectiveness of different healthcare practices”. We already have the National Committee for Quality Assurance and specifically this standard (also described here). And it’s not like HMOs don’t care about “effectiveness of different healthcare practices” – they constantly ask the company I work for to run computer simulations of alternative treatment guidelines. In fact, as we are now witnessing the beginning of a (long overdue) medical revolution, my biggest worry is that the government will stifle innovation.