In The New Republic, Harold Pollack, a professor at the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration and Special Correspondent for The Treatment, pushes back against one of the nastiest GOP memes in years. The whole thing is worth a read and here are two highlights:
Third, people genuinely worry that comparative effectiveness research (CER) is a stalking horse for rationing or for curtailing care for the sick, elderly, or disabled. This is a misplaced concern. I recently noted an Institute of Medicine CER report. None of the identified high-priority items involved anything approximating the rationing of life-saving or life-extending care. End of life care ranked 28th in their chart of priority areas for CER research.
Dr. Emanuel’s oncology career provides more than passing familiarity with the consequences of devastating, sometimes life-ending illness. He has written widely about the dilemmas of relying on medical care proxies in caring for desperately ill patients, chemotherapy at the end of life, and other intimate clinical concerns. There is nothing Orwellian about him. He has prominently opposed legalization of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, for example.
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