Mr. Feldstein, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Ronald Reagan, is a professor at Harvard and a member of The Wall Street Journal’s board of contributors. Mr. Feldstein asserts that “rationing” is central to the Obama Administrations healthcare reform package.

Read the full article here: ObamaCare Is All About Rationing

The White House officially launched the Health Insurance Reform Reality Check web site to battle the supposed Health Care ‘Rumors’. The Reality Check web site is designed the same way that Fight the Smears website was during President Obama’s candidacy for election. The objective of Health Insurance Reform Reality Check is to fight off white the White House is characterizing as “wild rumors” and other “myths” about the impending health care reform. The web design uses a solid Social Media platform in hopes of connecting with younger users and those akin to using social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. “We’re offering the site and tools to empower individuals across the country to take this content into their own hands and share it among their networks,” a senior administration official said.

The Health Insurance Reform Reality Check website uses video clips to help state their case:

View Valerie Jarrett disputing the claim that health care reform will lead to “rationing.”

View Melody Barnes, director of the Domestic Policy Council, disputing what the White House calls a “malicious myth” — the idea that reform would lead to euthanasia for seniors.

View Matt Flavin, Director of Veterans and Wounded Warrior Policy, explains that nothing in health insurance reform will affect veterans’ access to the care they get now.

View Christina Romer, Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, debunks the myth that health insurance reform will hurt small businesses.

The website also offers tools to share and email these video’s – check it out here.

The Disruptive Women’s Blog has put out an eBook on Comparative Effectiveness Research. You can download it for free at their website.

Here is an excerpt from the announcement…

At the end of June 2009, Disruptive Women in Health Care ran a series of posts that explored the issue of Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER) from a variety of viewpoints and perspectives:Comparative Effectiveness ebook cover

• Patients
• Providers
• Innovators
• Caregivers
• Policymakers
• Rare Diseases
• Minorities
• Gender

While there is tremendous potential in the power of CER, there remain a number of troubling issues and difficult questions.  The promise and the pitfalls are reflected in the new CER ebook we put together, which encapsulates each of the posts.

Download a free copy of the CER eBook.

If you are not signed up for the updates the AHRQ sends out – now is the time. This just came across the wire…

We are pleased to inform you of the August 7, Notice of Intent to Publish from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) to publish grant and contract solicitations for comparative effectiveness research projects with $300 million in funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). AHRQ anticipates grant and contract solicitations to be published beginning in fall 2009 with awards starting in spring 2010.

AHRQ has supported comparative effectiveness research for many years. Since 2005, this research has been funded through the Agencyâ??s Effective Health Care Program, which provides systematic reviews, supports new research to fill information gaps, and develops other translational information and tools designed to inform health care decision making.

AHRQ’s comparative effectiveness research projects that will be funded under ARRA will focus initially on 14 priority conditions that the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services established under Section 1013 of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003, which can be found at http://effectivehealthcare.ahrq.gov/aboutUs.cfm?abouttype=program#Conditions.

Grants for comparative effectiveness research funded under ARRA include the following amounts and areas:

• $148 million for evidence generation, including prospective studies and patient registries.
• $29.5 million to support innovative translation and dissemination grants.
• $20 million to support training and career development.

Contracts for comparative effectiveness research funded under ARRA include the following amounts and topics:

• $9.5 million to establish an infrastructure to identify new issues for comparative effectiveness review investments.
• $10 million to establish a citizen’s forum to formally engage all stakeholders and to expand and standardize public involvement in the entire effective health care enterprise.

Additionally, AHRQ anticipates supporting other grants ($1 million) and enhancing existing contracts for evidence synthesis ($50 million), evidence generation ($24 million), translation and dissemination ($5 million), and salary and benefits for ARRA-related full-time equivalent positions ($3 million).

Until the solicitations are published, AHRQ cannot provide additional information on their contents. In the meantime, interested parties may sign up to receive e-mail updates about AHRQ’s Effective Health Care Program by clicking on the red envelope at the top of http://effectivehealthcare.ahrq.gov/.