As Congress continues to debate the brave new world of health care, the New York Times provides an example from Health Affairs of government-run health care’s predisposition for prescriptions.
New federally financed drug research reveals a stark disparity: children covered by Medicaid are given powerful antipsychotic medicines at a rate four times higher than children whose parents have private insurance. And the Medicaid children are more likely to receive the drugs for less severe conditions than their middle-class counterparts, the data shows.
Reporter Duff Wilson provides a look at the debate over treatment of low-income children with mental or behavioral problems. Meicaid pays less for counseling or psychotherapy, but charges no copays for prescriptions. Unless the parent has an aversion to medicating her child, the easiest and cheapest solution is to take the prescription.
Medicaid children are also 50 percent more likely to be diagnosed for attention deficit, hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) than those with private insurance. The condescension towards the children on Medicaid is palpable among some doctors:
?Maybe Medicaid kids are getting better treatment,? said Dr. Gabrielle Carlson, a child psychiatrist and professor at the Stony Brook School of Medicine. ?If it helps keep them in school, maybe it?s not so bad.?
Comparative effectiveness research and evidence-based medicine are worthwhile when setting voluntary standards. But the research moves too much and is too unsettled to apply with authority through law or regulation.
