A post at Wired Science is titled “Should Medicare Pay for Genetic Testing?” DHHS is trying to answer this question by asking people to fill out a survey. Without market forces, such questions become arbitrary and unanswerable. A survey can not simulate the free market.
The author of the post correctly points out the extent to which Medicare has messed up healthcare:
If Medicare starts paying for the procedure, the burgeoning field of personalized medicine will turn a major corner. Private insurance companies might follow the government’s lead, and offer reimbursements for the evaluation.
That is, companies invest in or discard technology based on what a bureaucrat decides. Instead of efficient improvements in products and services, we get haphazard results at the whim of a bureaucrat.
2:22 pm on September 3, 2008
