Word: congress
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Comparative Effectiveness After a huge behind-the-scenes fight last winter, Congress allocated $1.1 billion of the economic-stimulus measure to "comparative effectiveness" studies, which evaluate which medical treatments and tests work best. Both the House and Senate bills would set up institutes to compare the efficacy of various procedures. Proponents say the studies are essential to ending medical treatments that juice up fees without adding much benefit. But it is far from clear whether Congress would allow such studies to affect health care costs. Opponents say they are a precursor to medical rationing. Indeed, both the House and Senate...
...Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius furiously tried to distance the Administration from the recommendation, a chorus of critics declared it a harbinger of exactly the type of bureaucratic health care apportioning they fear most. Any similarly controversial recommendation based on comparative-effectiveness research would almost certainly be neutered by Congress...
...Medicare Commission When Obama began his push for reform, he asked Congress to create an independent commission to regulate Medicare costs. Medicare, which spends more than $450 billion a year, is such a huge health care player that any changes it makes can lead the way for reforms in the private market. As originally envisioned, the new agency would essentially take over Congress's current authority to set Medicare payment rates for hospitals, doctors, nursing homes and other health care providers. It would use a process like the military-base-closing commission, whose recommendations automatically go into effect unless Congress...
...Pilot Projects The legislation in Congress is chock-full of pilot projects designed to test out ideas for lowering costs. But critics contend that such projects work to preserve the status quo. "We don't need pilots. We have enough information," says Kenneth Thorpe, chairman of the health policy department at Emory University. "Let's go ahead and get on with this...
...things stand, opinion surveys (a far from infallible guide) put senator Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III in the lead. A low-profile figure during nine years in Congress, the bookish-looking lawmaker was pushed to the limelight just a few months ago after the death of his admired mother Corazon, a former president and symbol of democacy during the anti-Marcos struggle. Some pundits predicted his star would quickly fade, but that hasn't happened. Manuel Villar, a rags-to-riches real estate developer born in Manila's Tondo port area, is placing second. Behind him is ousted former president Joseph...