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Dear Friends,

Tucked inside the odious Economic Stimulus Package are two dangerous provisions that together could have life-threatening consequences - government-rationed health care. These provisions will affect every part of health care - from medical education to how patients are treated to what will be paid.

The bill provides $3,000,000,000 to create a national medical database to track every person's medical history. It also allocates over $1,000,000,000 for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) to undertake comparative effectiveness research, an idea proposed by Tom Daschle, who recently withdrew his nomination for Secretary of Health and Human Services.

"Comparative effectiveness research" evaluates the merits of different medical treatments to "determine the best practice for the treatment of a certain condition." This means that the federal government will monitor your medical treatments to ensure that your doctor does what the federal government wants - that the treatment is, in their words, "appropriate and cost effective."

Every medical decision would be made by federal bureaucrats, not patients, families or doctors who know us and care for us. Hospitals and doctors could be penalized for following their medical expertise and/or religious convictions.

What can we expect the government to define as "appropriate and cost effective treatments?" For one example, Daschle says that seniors should be more accepting of conditions that come with age instead of treating them.

In the United Kingdom, which was the model for Daschle, the health board determined that elderly patients with macular degeneration had to wait until they went blind in one eye before they could get treatment to save the other eye. Allowing a health board such expansive powers over our lives degrades our humanity and endangers our health!

Please call your Representative and Senators today at 202-224-3121 and urge them to remove these provisions from the final Stimulus Package.

Sincerely,

Wendy Wright
President