The Manhattan Institute has published a new analysis on the fallacy behind comparative effectiveness research (CER).  The analysis was produced by Tomas J. Philipson of the University of Chicago and Eric Sun of Stanford University.  President Obama has implied that CER, which looks to the most effective treatment for the "average" patient, can be an effective tool to reducing government spending on healthcare.  There is only one problem with this, it isn't true.

President Obama suggests that if the "blue pill" is as effective for the average patient as the "red pill" but cheaper then that should figure into the course of treatment.  The suggestion is also that it will factor into what government will be willing to pay for. But the average patient is not the same as an individual patient.  Just because 51% of patients respond "as well" to one therapy does not mean that such therapy is the best course of treatment for the other 49% of the population. In fact, the 49% may have another complicating condition that would state the "blue pill" is the exact wrong course of treatment.

The human body is complex but Obama and supporters of ObamaCare want to reduce the practice of medicine to a mechanical exercise that ignores the individuality of patients and the variety of response each person may have to a specific treatment.  As Philipson and Sun state: "Declaring a treatment most effective based on an average is a medical and an economic error...."
 
The Executive Summary and a link to the full analysis can be found here.

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