Thursday, June 3, 2010

“Shaky” Data Underlie Democrat Claims on Costs

The New York Times is out this morning with a feature analysis that dispels some of the myths surrounding the Dartmouth Atlas survey.  Some of the criticisms have been previously reported – for instance, a December Times piece examined a study highlighting a California study from last year indicating that spending in the last year of life presents a potentially misleading picture of hospitals’ efficiency, because (by definition) it does NOT examine care interventions that successfully saved lives.

Two startling quotes from Dartmouth’s Elliott Fisher stand out in this morning’s article.  First, Fisher admitted that he and his Dartmouth colleagues have made unsupported claims that more spending equals worse care, even though there is “little evidence” to support this claim.  Fisher admitted “that he was sometimes less careful in discussing his team’s research than he should be” by drawing conclusions without data to back them up.

Second, Fisher made this stunning statement about his research for the Dartmouth Atlas: “We never asserted and never claimed that we judged the quality of care at a hospital — only the cost.”  So if you were wondering where Donald Berwick – the Administration’s nominee to run the Medicare and Medicaid programs – obtained the notion that we should cap health care spending and “ration with our eyes open,” you may have just found your answer.