“When Americans go to the doctor, we usually have a lot of questions in mind – why am I not feeling well?  How long until I’m better?  What will the treatment be? 

Every doctor walks into the patient’s room with sets of questions, too, to diagnose the problem and elect a treatment.

At the end of the visit, when the doctor scribbles on a prescription pad and tears the little white sheet off, we know we have an answer – and we stop asking questions. 

We shouldn’t.  Why this prescription?  How did the doctor make a decision?  On what evidence? From whom?

These are questions for state and federal agencies as we spend millions on prescription drugs without really knowing which ones work best in specific situations.

Big pharmaceutical companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars to get that name-brand pill on the doctor’s mind and on the prescription pad.  Yet the decision to prescribe a pill is not always based on the best, or the most, information possible.  Drugs are tested against a placebo, but not necessarily against one another, in the treatment of disease.  The result is a measure of success in a certain study, usually conducted as part of the approval process for the prescription drug.  Once the medicine is approved, however, it is left to doctors, pharmacists and patients to
figure out how to proceed with the treatment.  They may know how a prescription drugs works, but they may not know how well compared to others on the market.

Few studies test prescription drugs and other treatments against one another to determine if there is an evidence-based choice given a set of specific circumstances.  There is no encyclopedic resource to measure the comparative effectiveness of prescription drugs or other medical treatments.  I’ve offered legislation in Congress, H.R. 2184, to correct that deficiency in our system of health care and to give patients the confidence they deserve when filling prescriptions at the pharmacy.

This bill is designed to provide verifiable information about what medicines and treatments can be proven to work best in cases as common as the common cold and as serious as a heart attack.

Though the primary focus is on information for the doctor, pharmacist and patient, these are not the only people who benefit from evidence-based decisions about prescription drugs.  By making our system of comparing medicines more complete and more effective, we can save the taxpayer a substantial sum, too.

Oregon and Michigan have implemented systems on the state level and saved five and ten percent off their Medicaid drug spending, respectively.  Other states are following suit. 

They are engaged in an evidence-based study of their own: comparative effectiveness works as a treatment for soaring drug costs.  The burdens of state Medicaid bills are so dangerously high – we must act on a national level to give states alternatives to cutting beneficiaries off from care. 

We must arm our doctors and patients with information, helping patients get the treatments that work best and driving down medical expenses for all Americans.”