AMA backs Kyl-McConnell bill

June 23, 2009 -- WASHINGTON, D.C. – One week after the President’s address to the American Medical Association (AMA), the group today formally endorsed legislation introduced by U.S. Senate Republican Whip Jon Kyl (Ariz.) and U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) that would bar the federal government from denying health-care treatment to a patient based on cost.

In its letter, that AMA writes it “strongly supports government funding that will increase quality comparative clinical effectiveness research…and welcome[s] the provisions in S. 1259 that ensure CER findings will guide physician and patient decision-making, not dictate it.”

S. 1259, the Preserving Access to Targeted, Individualized, and Effective New Treatments and Services (PATIENTS) Act of 2009, was introduced by Kyl and McConnell on June 15. The bill would bar the federal government from using “comparative effectiveness research” – a common tool used by socialized health-care systems to dictate treatment based on cost rather than effectiveness – to deny coverage of a health-care treatment or micromanage the practice of medicine.

The organization of physicians and medical students further states in its letter that “physicians must not be constrained when they are developing individualized treatment plans and differentiating, when necessary, between patients for whom the study findings apply and those for whom the study is not representative. Thus, CER findings should not be used as a blunt tool to foreclose diagnostic and treatment options and strategies that could be necessary and effective for a minority or subset of patients.”

The bill awaits consideration before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.

Source: Senator Jon Kyl