The bloody-minded medical egalitarianism of Washington state's Health Technology Assessment Program has at least one strong advantage over the proliferating U.S. government agencies now springing into existence: It can be repaired or eliminated by legislation action. Washington's new bureaucratic horrors were specifically designed to be eternally free of any oversight or legislative review.
Someone anticipated that when government forbids the development or use of drugs and medical equipment that do not produce the same results for everyone in the same way—or that only cure some but not all patients—there would inevitably be a popular reaction. That is why the Patient-Centered Outcome Research Institute was provided with perpetual funding independent of congressional appropriation. That is why ObamaCare, which gives the "independent medical advisory board" powers to decree what treatments will be permitted, actually states that no future Congress may modify the board's powers or repeal its existence. Declaring any law to be immutable forever used to require a constitutional amendment. It is this establishment of an uncontrollable medial tyranny which should not remain untested in the courts.
The most important moral point in your editorial is that physicians treat unique individuals one at a time. They must not be forced to treat a "typical" patient instead of each of us. In this context, what a supposed "right to health care" actually means is that no one will have access to any health care at all except what the government decides to permit.
Richard E. Ralston
Executive Director
Americans for Free Choice in Medicine
Newport Beach, Calif.
Note from KBJ: Two words: "death panels." Sarah Palin nailed it early on.
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 