Berwick explained that there are three steps to “comparative effectiveness research.” The first is to determine whether a therapy works or not. The second is to determine how well the therapy works compared to other therapies. The third is to do a cost-benefit analysis.

“If a new drug or procedure is effective, and has some advantage over existing alternatives,” Berwick said, “then does the incremental benefit justify the likely additional cost?”

Now, in a free country where people freely chose to pay for their own health care with their own money, this is a good question for any prudent consumer. It is exactly that “free market force” that Berwick implored the British socialists not to put their faith in.

But in a country where the government has taken regulatory and fiscal control of the health care system—where the state is subsidizing most people’s care—and where government bureaucrats make the decisions about who gets what treatment, this question is not the animating moving force behind the invisible hand of the market, it is the dark materialistic spirit behind the iron hand of a life-and-death tyranny.

Berwick went on to say, “any health care funding plan that is just must redistribute wealth.”  Meaning, of course, the wealth must be redistributed to the government which pays for the care.  You and I will be taxed into poverty, with the hope that this will make us more reliant and subservient to our bureaucratic overlords.

via CNSNews.com – Obama Names Rationing Czar to Run Medicare.

An advisory panel to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recommended that every person be vaccinated for the seasonal flu yearly, except in a few cases where the vaccine is known to be unsafe.

[...]

The H1N1 swine flu scare of the past year played a major role in the committee’s about face, both because the disease killed many people falling outside the current recommended vaccine demographic and because it raised public awareness of and demand for vaccines.

Truthfully, it was the government’s propaganda that raised public awareness and demand for vaccines.  H1N1 was actually less dangerous than the normal seasonal flu, and it’s difficult to really say how many people were affected by it, because early in the season, the CDC instructed caregivers to stop testing for H1N1, and to just call every instance of “flu-like symptoms” another “swine flu case.”

via U.S. government panel now pushing “vaccinations for all!” No exceptions….

About a quarter of the swine flu vaccine produced for the U.S. public has expired — meaning that a whopping 40 million doses worth about $260 million is being written off as trash.

[...]

About 30 million more doses will expire later and may go unused, according to one government estimate. If all that vaccine expires, more than 43 percent of the supply for the U.S. public will have gone to waste.

Federal officials defended the huge purchase as a necessary risk in the face of a never-before-seen virus. Many health experts had feared the new flu could be the deadly global epidemic they had long warned about, but it ended up killing fewer people than seasonal flu.

[...]

The new H1N1 swine flu emerged in April last year, hitting children and young adults particularly hard. It was difficult to predict how deadly it might be or how easily it might spread. Federal health officials pushed five vaccine manufacturers to produce a vaccine as quickly as possible. What’s more, they wanted a lot of it — many experts thought most people would need two doses for it to work.

[...]

In Europe, where nations also found themselves with millions of unused doses, some commentators have attacked the World Health Organization, which declared swine flu a global epidemic, or pandemic.

The critics have questioned the motivation of some WHO advisers who had links to the pharmaceutical industry.

[...]

“Each time the so-called experts told us that millions of people would be killed worldwide by the respective viruses. We have learned that the experts were utterly wrong,” said Dr. Ulrich Keil, a professor at Germany’s prestigious University of Muenster and a WHO adviser.

via 40 Million Doses of H1N1 Vaccine Will Be Burned – H1N1 – FOXNews.com.

What exactly is behavior health modification and where is the Constitutional authority for the Federal government to try and modify or control the behavior of the American people when it comes to things like what we eat and the amount of exercise we must have? What will the government be looking at when it comes to our “mental health” and “behavioral health?” In the former Soviet Union people who opposed the Communist form of government were regularly committed to mental institutions and in Communist China those who exhibited behavior contrary to that mandated by the State were sent to “re-education camps” in order to modify their behavior.

And then, he returns to the fundamentals:

Moreover, at the beginning of the Executive order Obama says this: “By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including section 4001 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act Public Law 111-148, it is hereby ordered as follows:”

I beg to disagree Mr. President. While Section 4001 of the Health Care Bill may claim to give you this authority, the Constitution of the United States, that you took an oath to defend and uphold, does not give you any such authority. Unless I am violating an existing Federal or State criminal law, nothing I say or do as an American citizen is subject to your control.

The Constitution is the supreme law of the land.  It cannot be modified except by the specified amendment process.  Thus, Congress cannot simply pass a lawgiving the president authority to make law — that power is specifically enumerated as belonging to Congress, and the process for passing a law is not the same as the process for amending the Constitution.

Thus, the president still does not have the authority to make law, but only the authority to enforce that law that is constitutional.

via LEGISLATIVE ALERT! – Connelly.

Congress has no authority under the Constitution to control what health insurance your purchase, and these mandates should be vigorously ignored and fought.

Therefore, effective March 23:

• Individuals seeking new or alternative coverage can only buy policies that “comply with Affordable Care Act provisions from which grandfathered health plans are exempted.”
• Groups seeking new or alternative coverage (obviously including new groups) are in the same boat.
• As shown earlier this morning, any changes beyond trivial to existing group or individual policies will cause those policies to lose their grandfathered status, forcing those plans to “comply with Affordable Care Act provisions.”

Thus, those looking to purchase new policies or who make even minor changes to existing policies that lead to de-grandfathering will have three choices:

• ObamaCare's specified minimum coverage levels, which are far higher and far more expensive than typical private plans.
• Coverage that is more generous and therefore even more expensive than ObamaCare's specified minimum — but not too generous. As commenter Gary Hall at the previous NewsBusters post noted, if one has coverage that is considered overly generous, it will run the risk of being considered a “Cadillac” plan subject to a 60% excise tax. By 2018, when that tax takes effect, the distance between ObamaCare's high-threshold minimum coverage and where the “Cadillac tax” kicks in may not be very great. A majority of large-employer plans and plans at many small professional enterprises may end up being subject to the tax.
• Paying penalties as individuals for not buying insurance or as employers for not covering employees.

via Draft ObamaCare Regs Vindicate IBD’s 2009 ‘Individual Private Medical Insurance Is Illegal’ Claim | NewsBusters.org.

Internal administration documents reveal that up to 51% of employers may have to relinquish their current health care coverage because of ObamaCare.

Small firms will be even likelier to lose existing plans.

The “midrange estimate is that 66% of small employer plans and 45% of large employer plans will relinquish their grandfathered status by the end of 2013,” according to the document.

In the worst-case scenario, 69% of employers — 80% of smaller firms — would lose that status, exposing them to far more provisions under the new health law.

via Leaked ObamaCare Docs: Majority of Employer Health Plans Won’t Be ‘Grandfathered’ | NewsBusters.org.

Last night, the House of Representatives passed health care reform and moved the bill to the President’s desk for a final signature.

The bill is littered with tax increases in order to fund the expansion of health coverage for Americans, and the Reconciliation Act, now in the Senate, has similar increases.

via New Taxes In The Healthcare Bill.

The paradox I still do not understand is: if healthcare is a right, why are we fined for not exercising it?

Will the Democrats at some point begin fining people who do not own guns, who do not practice religion, or who do not peaceably assemble and petition the government for a redress of grievances?

The bill passed in a 219-212 vote after more than a year of bitter partisan debate. All 178 Republicans opposed it, along with 34 Democrats.

via House passes health care bill on 219-212 vote – CNN.com.

Sixty percent of the citizens also opposed the plan… but who cares about us?

What about the Constitution, which has no enumerated power authorizing Congress to force individual citizens to buy something against their will or face fines?

For the first time in the history of the nation, citizenship literally comes with a price.

Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay said Sunday that Americans saw the Constitution burned by Democrats as the current Party in power rammed through healthcare reform legislation the citizens clearly said they didn’t want.

Speaking to Fox News’s Geraldo Rivera after the historic vote, the man formerly known as “The Hammer” said, “Not only did they not listen to the American people, they shredded and trashed the Constitution and then stood there on the floor of the House and lied to the American people.”

via Tom DeLay: You Saw The Constitution Burned By Democrats Tonight | NewsBusters.org.

I promise to veto this legislation when it is placed on my desk, and to work with Congress to repeal any other federal restrictions on health care in America.

CNN’s Jack Cafferty blasted the president and top Democrats on their now-secret backroom dealings, arrangements, and negotiations on healthcare:

CAFFERTY: How dare they- President Obama, Democratic leaders have decided to bypass a formal House and Senate conference committee, in order to reconcile those two health care bills. Instead, White House and Democratic leaders will hold informal- that’s another word for secret – negotiations, meant to shut Republicans and the public out of the process. What a far cry from the election, when then-candidate Obama pledged to- quote, ‘broadcast health care negotiations on C-SPAN, so that the American people can see what the choices are,’ unquote. President Obama hasn’t even made a token effort to keep his campaign promises of more openness and transparency in government. It was all just another lie that was told in order to get elected.