11.6.2009
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Missouri Congressman Roy Blunt, Chairman of the GOP Health Care Solutions Group, has cosponsored HR 3002, the Preserving Access to Targeted, Individualized, and Effective New Treatments and Services (PATIENTS) Act of 2009, introduced by Republican Leader John Boehner. Boehner’s bill will prevent rationing of Americans’ health care through comparative effectiveness research.
Blunt is highlighting a health care bill he supports each day for two weeks. Blunt’s Health Care Solutions are designed to improve what is working and fix what is broken in Americans’ health care.
“Leader Boehner’s bill seeks to protect patients’ relationships with their doctors and will ensure that Americans receive the best care. Medical decisions should be made by patients in consultation with their doctors, not government bureaucrats,” Blunt said.
Blunt continued, “Comparative effectiveness research itself is not a bad thing. This research should focus on giving doctors an additional tool to evaluate treatment options available for their patients. However, comparative effectiveness research that focuses on cost and seeks to find the ‘average’ response will only push the practice of medicine to prescribe the bare textbook minimum.“
“Americans do not want a trillion-dollar government takeover of health care that increases costs and lets Washington bureaucrats make decisions that should be made by doctors and patients,” Boehner said. “Inevitably, as costs continue to increase in the Democrats’ plan, the government will be forced to limit treatment options for patients nationwide and care will be rationed by politics. The goal of this bill is to protect patients to ensure that does not happen.”
Yesterday, Blunt highlighted HR 3821, which will ensure that Americans with access to health care coverage at work are automatically enrolled. For more details on all of Blunt’s solutions, click here.
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