New Reports Show Comparative Effectiveness Research Could Cost Trillions
Requirements under Obamacare could reduce medical innovation, cut economic growth and life expectancy
New York, NY (May 11) -- Comparative effectiveness research (CER) will deprive Americans collectively of $4 trillion in economic activity and 81 million years of life, according to a report released today by the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest (CMPI).
"Our analysis shows that CER could significantly stifle innovation," said John A. Vernon, Ph.D., a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and co-author of the study. "As a result, Americans will live shorter lives in poorer health. Simply put, CER will cause us to produce less health."
The federal health reform law lays the groundwork for a new government-run comparative-effectiveness research center, which will purport to evaluate the costs and benefits of different treatment options -- and use these studies to decide what medical innovations government and health plans should pay for and to limit what technologies doctors and patients can choose.
Proponents of CER claim that it can reduce healthcare spending. But the CMPI study empirically demonstrates that CER will reduce the level of investment in pharmaceutical research and increase the cost of developing new treatments. Consequently, pharmaceutical research and development spending would decline by $32 billion over 10 years.
"Comparative effectiveness research would put the brakes on medical innovation and prevent many groundbreaking drugs from ever being invented," said Robert Goldberg, Ph.D., Vice President of CMPI and co-author of the studies. "Investments in medical research provide among the most productive uses of capital in the economy. Americans will suffer economically and physically if the government forces CER on the U.S. healthcare system."
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The report -- "Fewer Drugs, Shorter Lives, Less Prosperity: The Impact of Comparative Effectiveness Research on Health and Wealth" -- can be downloaded here: http://www.cmpi.org/reports-newsletters/reports/shorter-lives-less-prosperity-the-impacts-of-cer/.
The second report -- "Comparative Effectiveness Research: Effect On Pharmaceutical Innovation, Value of Health and Longevity" -- can be downloaded here: http://www.cmpi.org/uploads/File/Comparative-2.pdf.
Reporters interested in scheduling an interview with the authors of the report should contact CMPI Vice President Bob Goldberg at robert.goldberg@cmpi.org
About CMPI
The Center for Medicine in the Public Interest, a non-profit public policy group dedicated to research-based free market reforms for the health care industry.
