One More Reason to Hate the Stimulus Bill . . .

Carol Platt Liebau | February 09, 2009 4:57 PM

It's bad for your health. Betsey McCaughrey spells out some of the dangerous details of provisions in the so-called "stimulus" bill that will affect how medicine is practiced in this country:

One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and “guide” your doctor’s decisions (442, 446). These provisions in the stimulus bill are virtually identical to what Daschle prescribed in his 2008 book, “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.” According to Daschle, doctors have to give up autonomy and “learn to operate less like solo practitioners.”

Given the mess that the politicians are making of its supposed efforts to "help" the economy, I'd hate to see them micromanaging my doctor's decisions.

Do these provisions really belong in an "emergency" stimulus bill? Shouldn't there be time to discuss and debate what sound like some major changes to the US health care system? Or are the Democrats afraid of the public reaction to their plans?