Deciding which medical treatments work better than others is a tough job, but health policy experts say it could help hold down health care costs. Still, Americans aren’t too sure they want the government deciding which treatments their insurance should pay for, according to a new poll conducted by NPR, the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health.
More than half of Americans polled said they would trust an independent scientific panel to make decisions about which medical treatments insurers could cover. Yet only 42 percent said they would trust a government health agency to do the same job.
I don’t think I’d trust either one, frankly. Any body put into the position of deciding what is or isn’t included will be heavily lobbied by providers and activists for inclusion. Why not let consumers and insurers work it out between them?
Just make all the treatments available to Congress and ex-Presidents available to everyone. And, while at it, I’d like the Congressional Retirement Plan instead of Social Security.