Evidence-Based Policy Making? - Dumb Things Politicians Say About Health Care Policy

There have been multiple legislative attempts at major health care reform in the US.  Typically, such attempts feature considerable public debate, including speechs, congressional committee hearings, sometimes progressing to debates by the House and Senate.  (For example, see thisFrontline chronology of the proceedings up to the passage of the Affordable Care Act, aka " Obamacare, " in 2009.)  Usually the discussion includes some real experts on health care policy, and some real health care professionals, and at least appears to reference some data about medicine, health care, and health economics. Whether previous debates were truly evidence-based is not clear, but it appeared to me that they at least acknowledged the importance of evidence, and maybe even at times a rigorous approach to it.However, the proceedings up to the passage of the American Health Care Act seemed somewhat different.  There were no public committee hearings or debates.  Per a Los Angeles Times article in April, 2017 (via the Chicago Tribune):President Trump and House Republicans, in their rush to resuscitate a bill rolling back the Affordable Care Act, are increasingly isolating themselves from outside input and rejecting entreaties to work collaboratively, according to multiple healthcare officials who have tried to engage GOP leaders.In particular,And senior House Republicans and White House officials have almost completely shut out doctors, hospitals, patient advocates and ...
Source: Health Care Renewal - Category: Health Management Tags: health care reform postmodernism Source Type: blogs