Every day Americans learn about another outrageous, irrelevant spending provision in Democrats’ so-called stimulus bill.

There’s money for global warming. There’s money for sex education. There’s money for Amtrak. There’s money for unions. There’s money to buy new cars and office space for bureaucrats. They’re even doing golf course renovations. Who knows, maybe they’ll even fix-up my rain gutter.

But here’s the bottom line: this bill has everything except economic stimulus. It’s just one big, sordid payback for Democrat special interests.

Congress has now become the make-a-wish foundation for greedy politicians.

And unfortunately, it gets much worse. Not only is the bill loaded with pork that will burden, rather than spur, the economy, but it also contains a dangerous – and overlooked – provision to begin handing over Americans’ healthcare freedom to bureaucrats.

It’s called “Comparative Effectiveness Research.” While it sounds innocuous, the worst big-government programs always do. In short, comparative effectiveness research is a tool for bureaucrats take your health care decisions away from you and your doctor. Washington Liberals plan to use this “research” to determine which medical treatments are, or are not, ‘cost-effective,’ as they determine.

Just read the words from the House Appropriations Committee’s own report on the stimulus regarding this provision: “Those items, procedures, and interventions… that are found to be less effective and in some cases, more expensive, will no longer be prescribed.” In reaction, 63 patient advocacy groups including the AIDS Institute, the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America, and the American Association for Cancer Research, have written a letter to Congress, expressing their concerns. They explained that this provision could lead to “restrictions on patients’ access to treatments and physicians’ and other providers’ ability to deliver care that best meets the needs of the individual patient.” Continued...