February 12, 2009 7:44AM # Government-Funded Comparative-Effectiveness Research: a Fool’s Errand By [Michael F. Cannon](https://www.cato.org/people/michael-f-cannon) --- SHARE An [article](http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/02/11/MN3315S47O.DTL&type=politics) in the *San Francisco Chronicle* by Victoria Colliver explains: 1. Why the Left and insurers want the government to fund [comparative-effectiveness research](https://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9940) (CER), 2. Why conservatives and the health care industry oppose government-funded CER, 3. Why the opponents of CER will prevail, 4. That the Left is going to keep pursuing this fool’s errand anyway, rather than [better ways to generate CER](https://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9940), and 5. Why I want to knock all their heads together. All that in [a rather short article](http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/02/11/MN3315S47O.DTL&type=politics). Here are the best parts: > “The intent is to use that information to ration care. Why else would you come up with the research to help people choose what provides a lot of value for the money and what doesn’t?” said Michael Cannon, director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank… > > > “It is perfectly legitimate for Congress to ration care in government programs,” said Cannon, who believes any government effort to conduct comparative-effectiveness studies will quashed by industry. “That’s exactly why you don’t want government paying for medical care.” ##### Related Tags [Government and Politics](https://www.cato.org/government-politics), [Health Care](https://www.cato.org/health-care) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).