A clumsy attempt to address the Medicare Part B physician fee problem has nagged at Washington for a decade, but it appears Congress is ready to put a doc fix in play. Whether it’ll happen depends on politics and, as a skeptic might argue, some accounting sleight-of-hand, but it appears this is a now-or-never moment. As has been widely noted, the Congressional Budget Office recently released a report proposing a lower figure for the budgetary effects of a repeal of the sustainable growth rate (SGR) mechanism than has been calculated for some time. Instead of the average figure of $30...

It has been said there are shortages in this world, but there has never been a shortage of bad ideas. In fact, the opposite seems to be true. Here are three really crummy ideas we should all hope end up thoroughly debunked. FDA does comparative effectiveness research We’ve tackled this idea before, but unlike fine red wine, this one isn’t improving with age. The Institute of Medicine released a report recently stating that FDA should “have a more rigorous approval process for new technologies,” arguing that...