Health Care For America Now

Rush Limbaugh, Betsy McCaughey, and other conservative media personalities have been waging an all out war on health care in the economic recovery package over the last few days. Their target? Two (relatively) small provisions providing money for investment and jobs in health information technology and comparative effectiveness research. I've been told by staffers on Capitol Hill that they're getting a lot of phone calls from people screaming that the economic recovery bill will "ration care" and "limit choice."

What are these things are why are they so bad? Well, they're not bad, and actually, they're not even new ideas. Igor Volsky at Think Progress explains:

The National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, for instance, which McCaughey and the Fox News described as a “new bureaucracy,” already exists.

Established by President George W. Bush in 2004, the Office “provides counsel to the Secretary of HHS and Departmental leadership for the development and nationwide implementation” of “health information technology.”

Far from empowering the Office to “monitor doctors” or requiring private physicians to abide by treatment protocols, the new language tasks the National Coordinator with “providing appropriate information to help guide medical decisions.” This provision is intended move the country towards adopting money-saving health technology (like electronic medical records), reduce costly duplicate services and medical errors, and create jobs.

The Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research is also far less ominous than McCaughey lets on. Since most of the information doctors receive about medications comes from drug representatives and not independent scientists, comparative effectiveness research would help doctors and patients understand which therapies work.

The stimulus bill establishes a Council to coordinate the government’s research into the effectiveness of drugs and treatments, ensuring that America’s health care dollars are used wisely. The Council cannot require doctors to adopt its recommendations, however. On the contrary, it seeks to provide additional medical research that will save billions of dollars in wasteful spending and educate physicians on the latest medical developments and practices.

These talking heads have been joined by drug companies (read: PhRMA) and makers of medical devices, who have activated their army of DC lobbyists, because these measures could lead to research that would prove some of PhRMA's expensive drugs just don't work much better than less expensive treatments.

This is, in every sense of the phrase, a manufactured controversy. To make things more puzzling, both the House and Senate versions of the bill have almost equal amounts money in them for health IT and comparative effectiveness research. The right is, on the surface, trying to get provisions that the House and Senate agree on removed during the conference. That's a pretty tough task.

So, why go after a few small provisions in the recovery package that are already agreed on? And why go after health care in general, when there would seem to be far juicier targets?

This is mostly a long game. In the short term, the right hopes to provide political cover, so Republicans and moderates can use these measures as excuses to vote against final passage of the bill. In the long term, though, this is laying the groundwork for the larger health care fight.

It's a classic conservative play: Take a little issue, blow it out of proportion, claim it's "government socializing health care," and use fear to prevent progress. And it allows the big business lobbyists and the ideological conservatives to find good common cause.

It's important to recognize this as the opening salvo against health care reform. And it's important that we respond to show Congress the American people aren't fooled by these lies and scare tactics. Give your Members of Congress a quick call and tell them you don't believe the right's lies.

Expect more of this as health care reform moves forward.