WASHINGTON, DC – After failing to accept Senator Roberts’ amendment to keep Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER) from rationing health care in the Kennedy-Dodd health care reform proposal, Democrats again refused to protect the doctor-patient decision making process and signaled their intention to use CER to cut costs limiting patient access to treatments.

"In order to vigorously protect the right of patients and doctors to make treatment decisions against the danger that the government will interfere in that process," Roberts said, "the bill must prohibit the government from using the results of CER in making payment, coverage, or treatment decisions."

CER is research that compares the relative outcomes of two medical treatments for the same condition to determine which one is better.

The Roberts amendment would have prohibited the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), or any government entity, from using CER for payment, coverage or treatment decisions. The amendment was defeated but Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) gave his commitment to Senator Roberts that there would be other opportunities to debate the issue.

"I offered new language that would place a clear, bright-line firewall between the conduct of Comparative Effectiveness Research, which by the way I think is essential to advancing medical science," Roberts said, "and the use of its results to restrict your doctor from using his or her best judgment when treating you."

Roberts made the following remarks on the Senate floor shortly after the Committee vote:

"This is not a scare tactic - health care rationing is happening right now in this country. We may not have explicit rationing like in the U.K. where the government refuses to give elderly people drugs to treat their macular degeneration until they have already gone blind in one eye. Or refuses kidney cancer drugs for terminal patients because its not worth the money to extend their life by six months.

"But we have de facto rationing because Medicare and Medicaid refuse to pay doctors anything close to what their costs are. This means that those doctors can’t afford to take Medicare and Medicaid patients, which means that those individuals do not have access to care. That’s rationing.

"We know that the Administration wants to use CER to contain costs. We know that CMS has a history of denying full payment based on costs.

"So why are the Democrats resisting my language to protect you and your doctor and your right to make treatment decisions? Why are they trying to muzzle my warnings that this could lead to the rationing of health care?

"It boils down to the fact that they don’t want the American people to know their true plans. That’s why they are shoving this massive health care reform bill through Congress at warp speed- having markups before we even have complete language or cost estimates.

"Because they know that if Americans knew what they were really doing, they would never stand for it. Well, I’m not going to allow this to continue. I’m shouting it from the rooftops. ‘Beware what lurks under the banner of reform!’

"Don’t wake up one day and realize that the government has taken over your health care the same way they have taken over the banks and the auto industry. Don’t let them ration your health care."

Senator Roberts is an original cosponsor of The PATIENTS Act, introduced by Senators John Kyl (R-AZ) and Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to bar the federal government from using Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER) to deny coverage of a health-care treatment or micromanage the practice of medicine.

Senator Roberts is a member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions and is a member of the Senate Committee on Finance. Roberts is also Co-Chairman of the Senate Rural Health Caucus.

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