(or, What You Might Find Hiding In a Pile of Legislative Rocks)
The ghost of Tom Daschle wasted no time insinuating its reform agenda into the national healthcare debate. Last week I wondered aloud what sort of impact his policy recommendations (from his book, Critical) would have after he was forced to withdraw his nomination for Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.
It's now clear that the Obama administration grabbed as much of Daschle's playbook as possible before sending him into the shadows. Exhibit A: the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. This is House Resolution 1, better known as the economic stimulus package. The 680 page tome contains the fabled $800+ billion of stimulating funds for every project a congress-person could dream up. As tends to happen with legislation set on the fast-track, enterprising politicians shove in pet-project after pet-project.
It's a sleight of hand trick. While we're frantic to approve funds that get the economy moving again, we don't pay attention to footnotes that create organizations such as the "Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research". Should policy making of this magnitude go in as a piece of legislative afterthought? Or should it be aired in the open? I'm somewhat split on this specific example because I believe we need significant change and the political process to achieve it is sure leave much scorched earth behind it. At the same time, no one ever said the democratic-republic form of government is pretty.
Back to the supply chain: I referred to this in a post last week. It's the federal version of our value analysis teams. This Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research would do as its title suggests: compare new products/procedures against what they're meant to replace and decide – based on clinical and cost data – whether the new one is a better clinical and economic fit.
I'm no political guy, but I've become engrossed in the process since reading Daschle's book. I know from my time in the healthcare industry that we must find a balance between introducing new technology and accepting the price hikes that inevitably follow. But I'm undecided on how much of this should be the purview of the feds.



