Question

Critics of government funding of comparative effectiveness research (CER) were concerned for what major reason?

		Critics believed that the government would ultimately use the CER findings to specify medical practice guidelines, limit access to treatments, and refuse to pay for expensive drugs.
		Critics believed that the government already spends too much on medical services and didn't want the government to start a new government-funded program.
		Critics believed that government-funded research is rarely as good as privately funded research conducted by private researchers.
		Critics believed that the government would bias the CER results to reduce access to certain drugs.

Answer 1

Critics believed that the government funding of comparative effectiveness research were concerned that the government would ultimately use the CER findings to specify medical, practice guidelines, limit access to treatment, and refuse to pay for expensive drugs. During the 2008 presidential elections, momentum for and interest in CER grew. Both major parties nominees made CER a key component of their approach to health care reform. Although CER garnered bipartisan support in the campaign, once Obama was elected in November 2008 and the democrats took the election, republican support waned, with many party leaders distancing themselves from or opposing the issue. As the battle over health care reform intensified and the stimulus bill was being debated in the early months of 2009, the discussion shifted from the specifics of CER and a possible research institute to weather it should be included in the reform at all. During this time opponents of CER found their voice in conservative commentators that linked the research with government domination over health care and warned of negative implications of adopting foreign models of CER, such as the national institute for health and care excellence (NICE) in England. Such opposition centered non fears that CER would restrict patients access to care and physicians autonomy and threaten biomedical innovation.