Sen. Tom Coburn: "The Health Bill Is Scary"

I recently suggested that seniors will die sooner if Congress actually implements the Medicare cuts in the health-care bill put forward by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. My colleagues who defend the bill—none of whom have practiced medicine—predictably dismissed my concern as a scare tactic. They are wrong. Every American, not just seniors, should know that the rationing provisions in the Reid bill will not only reduce their quality of life, but their life spans as well.

My 25 years as a practicing physician have shown me what happens when government attempts to practice medicine: Doctors respond to government coercion instead of patient cues, and patients die prematurely. Even if the public option is eliminated from the bill, these onerous rationing provisions will remain intact.

Section 6301 of the Reid bill creates new comparative effectiveness research (CER) programs. CER panels have been used as rationing commissions in other countries such as the U.K., where 15,000 cancer patients die prematurely every year according to the National Cancer Intelligence Network. CER panels here could effectively dictate coverage options and ration care for plans that participate in the state insurance exchanges created by the bill.
Additionally, the Reid bill depends on the recommendations of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force in no fewer than 14 places. This task force was responsible for advising women under 50 to not undergo annual mammograms. The administration claims the task force recommendations do not carry the force of law, but the Reid bill itself contradicts them in section 2713. The bill explicitly states, on page 17, that health insurance plans "shall provide coverage for" services approved by the task force. This chilling provision represents the government stepping between doctors and patients. When the government asserts the power to provide care, it also asserts the power to deny care.

The comparative effectiveness research panels are included in Title IV of the House bill, as well. These are the true "death panels," as I have been writing in this forum since last summer. Democrats IN BOTH HOUSES OF CONGRESS are committed to this barbarity. Here is how it works in the UK, where it is called NICE, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence:

NICE denied colon cancer sufferers a life-prolonging drug on the NHS which is available to patients across Europe and beyond. Trials show this drug, Avastin, can extend life by almost two years. But NICE says it is not cost-effective. A complex formula NICE says the annual cost of this drug would be is £36,000 per victim. This breaks the maximum limit set by Nice of £30,000 - a figure which has not changed in ten years despite inflation. So NICE says, these people just have to die.

The list of denials is long and heart-breaking, but here are a few more: *NICE restricted access to two drugs for Age-Related Macular Degeneration, Britain's leading cause of blindness. The result, according to Tom Bremridge, chief executive of the Macular Disease Society, was the government policy of "allowing one eye to go blind before treating the second eye is cruel..."

*NICE limited several Alzheimer's drugs to use in patients whose disease had advanced from early to middle-stage. Even though doctors argued that starting treatment at the onset of dementia would be most effective in slowing the progression of the disease, NICE decided that patients would have to wait until they became sick enough for the treatments to meet the cost-effectiveness threshold.

*NICE blocked access to Glivec, a leukemia treatment.

NICE rejected Avonex, which reduces the relapse rate in patients with multiple sclerosis;

NICE rejected Lenalidomide, which fights multiple myeloma. NOTE: Private U.S. insurers often cover all, or at least portions, of the cost of many of these NICE-denied drugs.

NICE has also produced guidance that restrains certain surgical operations and treatments. NICE has restrictions on fertility treatments; restriction on procedures for back pain, including surgeries and steroid injections.

I could go on and on. This is what the Democrats have planned for us.

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