Comparative effectiveness institute makes it into final health care bill

The Democratic health care bill enacted into law keeps President Barack Obama's promise to "establish an independent institute to guide reviews and research on comparative effectiveness to provide accurate and objective information."
 
Comparative effectiveness research measures medical treatments by their rates of success and their cost-effectiveness.
 
The new law replaces an existing comparative effectiveness coordinating council created by the 2009 economic stimulus bill with what's now called the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute. The new entity will set priorities and conduct research. It will be independent, governed by a board of experts and stakeholders, and funded by transfers from federal trust funds. The research will be peer-reviewed and made public.
 
Supporters say that such research could lower costs by advising against expensive procedures that don't improve people's health. But critics have suggested that the effort could lead the United States down a slippery slope in which experts insert themselves between doctors and patients and micromanage what treatments should be used -- especially with regard to end-of-life decisions.
 
Faced with such concerns, the bill's authors took special care to require any findings to be advisory only, rather than being binding on doctors or insurance companies.Responding to the critics' allegations of "death panels," the law prevents the use of any findings "in a manner that treats extending the life of an elderly, disabled, or terminally ill individual as of lower value than extending the life of an individual who is younger, nondisabled, or not terminally ill."
 
All in all, the newly established institute closely fits the terms of the president's campaign promise. We consider it a Promise Kept.