May 26th, 2010 by DrWes in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Opinion, Research
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“…I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.” — Blanche DuBois in Tennessee Williams’ play A Streetcar Named Desire
Years ago when I began my medical training, I recall enrolling patients for clinical research. In cardiology, there were a myriad of questions that needed to be answered, especially in the area of defining which medications were best to limit the damage caused by a heart attack.
Patients routinely participated in large, multi-center prospective randomized trials to answer these questions. It was routine for them not to charged for participating in the trial — the drug(s) and additional testing would be funded by the company whose drug was being studied. Patients enrolled willingly, eager to help advance science and perhaps, in some small way, their fellow man. It never dawned on me in those early days why hospitals and research centers were so eager to promote research. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Dr. Wes*
August 25th, 2009 by DrRich in Better Health Network, Opinion
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When Sarah Palin uttered the fateful words, “Death Panels,” she unleashed the holy wrath of the great unwashed masses, and as a result caused many of our more complacent legislators to abruptly bestir themselves into a higher state of arousal, if not outright agitation. Palin’s accusation caught more than a few of them utterly unawares, and embarrassingly flatfooted.
They felt, no doubt, like they were in that dream where you unaccountably find yourself naked in a crowd. But this time, rather than reaching to hide their sadly exposed nether parts, they reached instead for their pristine copies of HR 3200. One could almost pity them, desperately rifling through the 1100 virgin pages, wondering whether perhaps they should have tried to read that monstrosity earlier after all, and muttering to themselves, “Death panels? This damned thing has death panels?”
But DrRich is here to reassure them. First, as he has recently pointed out, there was in fact no reason for them to waste their time trying to read HR 3200. It was not designed for reading, comprehensibility, or (for that matter) imparting any actual information of any sort.
And second, HR 3200 contains no death panels. (In their state of stark panic, of course, and anxious to rid the bill of anything that might smack of death panels, our legislators quickly moved to strike Section 1233 from the bill, apparently because that section contains the phrase “end-of-life care.” But actually, Section 1233 talks about end-of-life counseling, and not death panels. Nothing in HR 3200 creates death panels.)*
The very notion of death panels seems to have many supporters of healthcare reform nonplussed. How can someone as inarticulate and obviously illiterate as Sarah Palin get away with accusing our highly-educated healthcare reformers of setting up such a thing as death panels? Really, what are death panels anyway? And even more perplexingly (since, after all, Republicans are capable of anything), why do so many Americans believe her – even, apparently, hundreds of thousands of Americans who were enlightened enough to vote less than a year ago for President Obama?
This question ought to greatly concern any of our elected representatives who support healthcare reform and who plan on being returned to Congress.
When Sarah Palin said, “Death Panels,” she was dropping one last, tiny crystal into a supersaturated solution. Her words took what had been an amorphous and even chaotic sense of unease about healthcare reform, and immediately crystallized it into an organized latticework of directed rage and fear. So the real question (for politicians hoping to seek re-election) is not how Sarah Palin came to be savvy enough to know just the right words. (Perhaps she was just “lucky,” or perhaps – and DrRich suspects this is the real explanation – she is a lot smarter than her critics allow.) Rather, the real question is: What put the rabble in such a supersaturated state to begin with? Why did the absurd-on-its-face idea of “death panels” so resonate with them? What made those words galvanize their shapeless disquiet into a solid mass of resistance?
DrRich is very sorry to have to tell his friends of the Democratic persuasion the sad truth – it was President Obama who created this circumstance. Sarah Palin may have named the death panels, but before she ever thought of the phrase, President Obama had already described them in some detail.
He described their function, how they would operate, and who they would target. During the past 6 months President Obama has actually offered several short discussions on what a “death panel” might be expected to accomplish. But perhaps the most instructive example is the one he gave on ABC television during his June 24 National Town Hall meeting.
DrRich refers, of course, to the famous question about the 100-year-old woman who received a pacemaker. The questioner pointed out that her grandmother had badly needed a pacemaker, but had been turned down by a doctor because of her age. A second doctor, noting the patient’s alertness, zest for life, and generally youthful “spirit,” inserted the pacemaker despite her advanced age. Her symptoms resolved, and Grandma continues to do well 5 years later. The question for the President was: Under an Obama healthcare system, will an elderly person’s general state of health, and her “spirit,” be taken into account when making medical decisions – or will these decisions be made according to age only?
President Obama’s answer was clear. It is really not feasible, he indicated, to take “spirit” into account. We are going to make medical decisions based on objective evidence, and not subjective impressions. If the evidence shows that some form of treatment “is not necessarily going to improve care, then at least we can let the doctors know that – you know what? – maybe this isn’t going to help; maybe you’re better off not having the surgery, but taking the pain pill.”
(DrRich will give President Obama the benefit of the doubt regarding his suggestion that a 100-year-old women who needs a pacemaker might be better off with a pain pill. Despite the way he is portrayed on the cover of Time Magazine, Mr. Obama is not actually a doctor, and cannot be expected to understand that using a “pain pill” to treat an elderly woman who is lightheaded, dizzy, weak and possibly syncopal because of a slow heart rate might justifiably be considered a form of euthanasia rather than comfort care. DrRich does not believe the President was intentionally suggesting the old woman’s death should be actively hastened by means of a pain pill. At the same time, DrRich’s advice to this still-spry 105-year-old Grandma is: since pacemakers usually need to be replaced every 6 – 7 years, you’d better think about having your 5-year-old pacemaker replaced right now, before the Obama plan has a chance to become law.)
President Obama’s answer in this case tells us several things. 1) There will be a panel, or commission, or body of some sort, that is going to examine the medical evidence on how effective a certain treatment is likely to be in a certain population of patients. 2) This (let’s call it a “panel”) panel will “let the doctors know” whether that treatment ought to be used in those patients. (”Letting the doctor know” is a euphemism for “guidelines,” which itself is a euphemism for legally-binding and ruthlessly enforced directives.). 3) “Subjective” measures (such as a physician’s clinical judgment as to an individual’s likelihood of responding to a therapy as the panel says they will – or, for that matter, a person’s “spirit”) ought not to influence these treatment recommendations, since that kind of subjective judgment is what got us into all this fiscal trouble in the first place. 4) But being that our government is a compassionate and caring one, palliative care will be made available in the form of pain control, even while withholding potentially curative care.
So, according to the President, we will have an omnipotent “panel,” acting at a distance and without any specific knowledge of particular cases, that will tell a doctor whether he/she can offer a particular therapy to a particular patient – or whether, instead, to offer a “pain pill.” His description of this process, offered with variations over the past several months in several venues, has obviously made quite an impression among the people. Of course, Mr. Obama is widely known to be a gifted communicator.
In any case, all that remained was for Sarah Palin to give the President’s panel a catchy name. And when she did, the American people (without reading HR 3200 or any other piece of legislation) knew exactly what she was talking about. They knew, because President Obama himself had been spelling it all out for them in plenty of detail for six months.
Indeed, it seems to DrRich that, if not for Mr. Obama’s having so carefully laid the groundwork, Palin’s accusations of “death panels” would have fallen flat. It would have been regarded by most people as the absurdity Democrats insist that it is, rather than the epiphany it turned out to be.
* There are no death panels in HR 3200 because creating them there would have been entirely superfluous. If we are to have death panels, or any entity that might pass as one, the provision for such a panel is already the law of the land. It was made so earlier this year (conveniently, before anybody started paying attention) in the Stimulus Bill, which created the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research.
DrRich has described before how the CER Council will perform cost-effectiveness calculations, then coerce physicians, through one form of federal subterfuge and intimidation or another, to employ the least expensive therapies (thus enforcing “cost”, while shouting “effectiveness”).
It is called a CER Council, and not a death panel. But if you should develop a fatal illness which you might have survived had you been allowed to receive a treatment that the Council has deemed cost-ineffective, then you might be forgiven for thinking of the CER Council (from your insular, personal, narrow-minded, self-interested point of view), as a death panel. But there are no death panels in HR 3200, and Sarah Palin should be ashamed of herself for suggesting otherwise.
*This blog post was originally published at The Covert Rationing Blog*
May 15th, 2009 by DrRich in Health Policy
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DrRich’s valued colleague R. W. Donnell, who writes Notes From Dr. RW, has responded to a recent post in which DrRich bravely came out in favor of Comparative Effectiveness Research, even at the cost (DrRich asserted) of alienating the majority of the more conservative-leaning components of his readership.
Dr. RW, noting DrRich’s claim that conservatives have laid out a formal policy of opposition to CER, says:
“OK, stop. Where are these people, conservatives or those of any ilk, who have taken a position against CER? Dr. Rich cites groups who are skeptical and very concerned about the new political agenda for CER, not CER itself.”
Dr. RW is, of course, correct. Research that compares the relative effectiveness of medical procedures or treatments is not only inherently a very good thing, but also is a form of research that has a long and proud history. Healthcare would be an even more dire activity than it is today without the large body of research that guides physicians in making recommendations to their patients when more than one option is available. So yes, comparative effectiveness research is obviously a valuable and time-honored endeavor, and for anyone (conservatives or anyone else) to come out against it would be akin to coming out against babies, or bunnies. (Though, as one whose effort to grow vegetables has been severely challenged each year by a pride of aggressive rabbits, DrRich, as it happens, is indeed against bunnies.)
So, to reiterate, neither conservatives nor anyone else are really against comparative effectiveness research, just as Dr. RW asserts.
What they are against is Comparative Effectiveness Research. They are against a new government bureaucracy that sets the CER agenda, whose stated goal is to create a more efficient and less expensive healthcare system, and that will have the authority to determine what gets reimbursed and what doesn’t.
Dr. RW has made it plain that he is not confused about the following point, but many are: There is a difference between comparative effectiveness research (whose unambiguous goal is to compare the clinical effectiveness among different treatment options, so as to offer physicians objective guidance in making clinical decisions, and which is as unassailable as babies and bunnies), and Comparative Effectiveness Research (which is to be operated by a new government bureaucracy, whose agenda regarding what kind of effectiveness is actually to be compared is intentionally ambiguous).
The ambiguity of CER (as compared to cer) was made clear recently when Peter Orszag testified on behalf of the administration before the Senate Finance Committee. When queried by skeptical Republicans on the ultimate goal of the proposed CER board, Mr. Orszag was evasive. Specifically, when asked by Senator Kyle (R-Arizona) whether the CER board would be empowered to make decisions on which medical services will be reimbursed, Mr. Orszag finally replied, “Not at this point,” a reply which did not alleviate the suspicions of the minority party.
To state the ambiguity more plainly, it is clear that while the CER board will mainly be concerned about comparing “cost effectiveness” (which is the only way they can potentially achieve their main goal of reducing healthcare costs), the only kind of effectiveness they are willing to discuss publicly is “clinical effectiveness.”
This studied ambiguity allows proponents of the new government plan to paint opponents of the CER board as being against the “babies and bunnies” form of comparative effectiveness research, and thus reveal those nay-sayers as being beneath contempt, unworthy of anyone’s attention. Meanwhile they will be free to advance their real “cost effectiveness” agenda.
DrRich agrees with conservatives that this kind of deceptive ambiguity is indeed contemptible. But really, it is no more contemptible than the thousands of other forms of covert healthcare rationing we see all around us. (Covert rationing inherently relies on ambiguity – saying we’re doing one thing while all the time we’re doing another.)
Having tried to clarify this distinction between cer and CER, DrRich will now repeat that his prior post was not merely to express support for the “babies and bunnies” variety. As Dr. RW points out, everybody is in favor of that kind of comparative effectiveness research.
Rather – and this is where he further jeopardizes his continued tolerance by his conservative readers – DrRich is offering his support to the other kind of CER, the kind described in the stimulus bill, which (though the administration will not say it publicly) will undoubtedly use comparative effectiveness research to perform cost effectiveness calculations, then coerce physicians, through one form of federal subterfuge and intimidation or another, to employ the least expensive therapies. The government bureaucrats, just as they are doing today but with less muscle, will shout “quality” while enforcing “cost.”
DrRich supports this kind of CER not because it is a good thing – it decidedly is not. He supports it because here is a form of covert rationing that will at last effect everyone, and will be so blatant that after a time even us Americans will no longer be able to ignore it, try as we might. DrRich believes that relatively soon, we would notice that here is a cadre of unelected bureaucrats rationing our healthcare – determining which of us lives and dies – through some opaque process, and lying to us about it the whole time. He believes this to be the pathway most likely to get the American people to finally face the fact of healthcare rationing, and to goad them into an open debate on the best and least harmful way to accomplish it.
Go ahead. Call him a cock-eyed optimist.
*This blog post was originally published at The Covert Rationing Blog*
March 25th, 2009 by SteveSimmonsMD in Primary Care Wednesdays
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Anyone working in healthcare has a moral responsibility to do the right thing, for the right reasons, and at a reasonable price; however, this is not happening. Today’s healthcare system is too expensive and it is broken. If it wasn’t broken, the current administration would not be focusing so much money and effort on fixing it. Likewise, 42 million Americans would not be uninsured creating two different standards of care within our country. Many decisions have already been made: providing government backed insurance coverage for the uninsured, encouraging the use of electronic health records systems (EHRs), and creating comparative effectiveness research boards (CERs). Much of what has been suggested sounds good but was passed by our legislature before seeking the input of those responsible for implementing these new policies and plans. Fortunately, President Obama’s administration is seeking input now and it is the responsibility of anyone working within the healthcare system to speak up and be heard.
Many hard-to-answer questions should have been asked before solutions were posed. Why is healthcare so expensive? How can the intervention of government lead us to better and more affordable healthcare? Although integrated EHR systems may prevent the duplication of tests and procedures, how can medical practitioners best use these systems to prevent mistakes? How will future decisions be made – between doctor and patient, or will the new CER Boards grow to do more than merely advise? How would the American people react to more controversial ideas, such as health care rationing to control exorbitant costs incurred at the end of life?
In my last post, I closed with a promise to share some ideas regarding healthcare reform. First, we should try to reach a consensus as to what is broken before implementing solutions. In Maggie Mahar’s book, Money-Driven Medicine (2006), her concluding chapter is titled, “Where We Are Now: Everybody Out of the Pool.” This title screams for change as she makes a convincing argument that all parties involved in healthcare need to rethink how we can work together to fix a broken healthcare system which seems focused, not on healthcare, but on money. Today, Uncle Sam has jumped into the pool feet first, creating quite the splash, and he is spending large sums of money to lead healthcare reform without first reaching a consensus as to what is broken in this system.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 will direct $150 billion dollars to healthcare in new funds, with most of it being spent within two years. Health information technology will receive $19.2 billion of these dollars, with the lion’s share ($17.2 billion) going towards incentives to physicians and hospitals to use EHR systems and other health information technologies. According to the New England Journal of Medicine, the average physician will be eligible for financial incentives totaling between $40,000 and $65,000; this money will be paid out to physicians for using EHRs to submit reimbursement claims to Medicare and Medicaid, or for demonstrating an ability to ‘eprescribe’. This money will help offset the cost of implementing a new EHR, which can cost between $20,000 and $50,000 per year per physician. However, after midnight, December 31, 2014, this “carrot” will turn into something akin to Cinderella’s pumpkin, becoming a “stick” that will financially penalize those physicians and hospitals not using EHRs in a “meaningful” way.
At our office, doctokr Family Medicine, we use an EHR, but consider it a tool, much like a stethoscope or thermometer, used to facilitate the doctor-patient relationship, not a tool to track our reimbursement activities. I would not argue against EHRs, but there is no evidence they will make healthcare more affordable and improve the quality of care delivered – unless you believe the $80 billion dollar a year savings “found” in the 2005 RAND study (paid for by companies including Hewlett-Packard and Xerox- incidentally, companies developing EHRs). I believe it will take far more than EHRs, financial incentives, and good data to fix our broken healthcare system.
Difficult decisions await those willing to ask the hard questions but don’t expect any easy answers to present themselves on the journey towards effective healthcare reform. My partner and I believe we have found answers to some questions and are moving forward, in our own practice, now. Asking why healthcare is so expensive and feeling frustrated with the high cost of medical software, we have written our own EHR, containing costs for our patients by keeping down our overhead expenses. Our financial model is based on time spent with the patient, not codes and procedures, which helps us to avoid ‘gaming’ the system and wasting time.
A familiar adage states that there are no problems, only solutions. I suggest, though, that there can be no solutions without problems. Find the right questions and opportunities abound. Earlier in this post, I asked how government intervention can lead us to better and more affordable healthcare. It can’t, at least not without the help and guidance of doctors, patients, industry, insurance companies, hospitals, and anyone who understands what is at stake with health care reform. We all share in the responsibility to try.
Until next week, I remain yours in primary care,
Steve Simmons, MD
February 24th, 2009 by Dr. Val Jones in Health Policy, Opinion
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When I first heard about the new emphasis on comparative clinical effectiveness research (CCER) in Obama’s economic stimulus bill I thought, “Thank goodness! Maybe now science will truly regain its rightful place and we’ll end the CAM, ‘me-too’ drug, and excessive-use-of-technology madness that is wasting so much money in healthcare.” In fact, I was so excited about the new administration’s apparent interest in objective analysis of medical treatment options, that I intended to write a jubilant blog post about it. However, as with most things that seem black and white at first glance, further analysis reduces them to shades of gray.
What Is Comparative Clinical Effectiveness Research?
The new economic stimulus bill, also known as The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) includes 1.1 billion dollars for clinical comparative effectiveness research. Interestingly, CCER is not defined in the bill though AHRQ describes it this way in their glossary:
“A type of health care research that compares the results of one approach for managing a disease to the results of other approaches. Comparative effectiveness usually compares two or more types of treatment, such as different drugs, for the same disease. Comparative effectiveness also can compare types of surgery or other kinds of medical procedures and tests. The results often are summarized in a systematic review.”
Any mention of “comparative cost effectiveness” or value-based language is notably absent.
How Does It Work?
The government’s new CCER initiative will be administered through a Federal Coordinating Council for clinical comparative effectiveness research. The FCC consists of a group of 15 federal employees, half of whom “must be physicians or other experts with clinical expertise.” [Meaning, none have to be physicians.] Some have suggested that the FCC is the first step toward an organization modeled after Britain’s National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE). NICE is regularly tasked with helping the NHS to decide which medical treatments should be available to their beneficiaries, and which should not be covered (based on their efficacy and cost).
The budget for the CCER will be divvied up as follows:
400 million – left to the discretion of the Secretary of HHS with 1.5 million to go to the Institute of Medicine for a report regarding where to focus CCER attention initially
400 million – to the office of the director, NIH
300 million – to AHRQ
Here is a quote from the ARRA bill, discussing the mechanics of CCER:
“The funding appropriated in this paragraph shall be used to accelerate the development and dissemination of research assessing the comparative clinical effectiveness of health care treatments and strategies, including through efforts that: (1) conduct, support, or synthesize research that compares the clinical outcomes, effectiveness, and appropriateness of items, services, and procedures that are used to prevent, diagnose, or treat diseases, disorders, and other health conditions and (2) encourage the development and use of clinical registries, clinical data networks, and other forms of electronic health data that can be used to generate or obtain outcomes data: Provided further, That the Secretary shall enter into a contract with the Institute of Medicine, for which no more than $1,500,000 shall be made available from funds provided in this paragraph, to produce and submit a report to the Congress and the Secretary by not later than June 30, 2009 that includes recommendations on the national priorities for comparative clinical effectiveness research to be conducted or supported with the funds provided in this paragraph…”
A Game-Changer For Pharma, Medical Technology, and Biotech
There is no doubt that CCER stands to radically change how industry does business. I anticipate that industry will develop their own internal CCER teams, and begin the process of comparing their new product (to others currently available) as early as phase 3 clinical trials. By and large, that’s probably a good thing – though there are potential unintended consequences that deserve mention.
While it’s appropriate for drug, device, and equipment manufacturers to consider whether or not their new product actually contributes something new/better to our current cadre of treatment options, there will be clear winners and losers in this game. And when companies lose, we lose companies. That’s generally not good for the economy. Manufacturers without diversified product lines are more likely to go out of business – and it will become more difficult for new players to enter the marketplace.
Although comparative clinical effectiveness research is distinct from comparative cost effectiveness research – it is likely that payers will use CCER to build their formularies. This means that even though the government (at this point in time) is not mandating coverage decisions based on CCER, health insurers are going to be using the information liberally to justify coverage preferences and even potential denials of coverage.
There’s also the question of stifling innovation. Blockbuster drugs are rarely discovered in a vacuum. They are the result of incremental steps in understanding the biology of disease, with an ever improving ability to target the offending pathophysiologic process. The first few therapies may offer marginally improved outcomes, but can lead to discoveries that substantially improve their efficacy. If an early drug is found to be only marginally better than the standard of care, an unfavorable comparative effectiveness rating could kill the drug’s sale. Without sales to recoup the R&D losses and reinvestment in the next generation of the drug, development may cease for financial reasons, and the breakthrough drug that could cure patients would never exist.
As Dr. Rich argues in his excellent blog: healthcare rationing is inevitable – but it’s more ethical to do it overtly than covertly. I would also like to suggest that insofar as physicians can be enlisted to translate CCER for patients (rather than being handed down inflexible rules from on high) and help them make the best decision for them – that would be even better. The inflexibility of national decisions about healthcare rationing does make me nervous.
What’s Good For The Geese Isn’t Necessarily Good For The Goose
First of all, most key healthcare stakeholders would like to be able to compare efficacy of one treatment option over another. Informed decision-making is hard to do when head-to-head studies are simply not available for most treatment options.
However, population-based conclusions do not always provide a clear “best choice” for individual patients. Individual genetic differences, allergy profiles, complicated drug regimens, unique constellations of diseases, socioeconomic factors, and psychological issues all influence clinical decision-making.
Dr. Nancy Nielsen recently voiced concern about CCER at the Medicare Policy Summit. She said that the AMA’s position is that CCER is for information purposes, not for coverage decisions. CCER’s goal is to help patients make informed choices, not limit their choices. I’m afraid the horse may have already left the barn on that one – but I agree with Dr. Nielsen’s sentiment. It would be wonderful if CCER could remain in its supportive role for shared physician-patient informed decision-making. My fervent wish is that in doing the right thing by the geese, we don’t kill off the occasional goose. Physicians need the flexibility to make exceptions when necessary for their patients.
Republican Unrest
A certain degree of hysteria related to CCER has recently wafted up through the hallowed halls of government. Are republicans overreacting to the bill? Maybe – though the bill doesn’t include any provisions for using CCER to mandate coverage decisions or ration care, it seems that Pete Stark has made it clear that he’d like the FCC to “direct medicine” which does kind of send a shiver down my physician spine, and provides some insight into what some democrats are hoping to accomplish with CCER – laying the foundation for future government involvement in the diagnosis and treatment of patients.
Also one particular congressional report is proving helpful in “reading the tea leaves” regarding the democrats’ plan for CCER. In describing the comparative effectiveness provision, the report states that items, procedures, and interventions “that are found to be less effective and in some cases, more expensive, will no longer be prescribed.”
While congressional reports are not binding, they do give an indication of intent.
The bottom line is that though CCER is not supposed to be used for “cost effectiveness” decisions – there’s no policy in place to protect that from happening.
Conclusion
Information about the comparative clinical effectiveness of treatment options is critical for the practice of evidence based medicine. Such information supports informed decision-making, and could be the single most important strategy for reducing the use of wasteful or ineffective therapies in healthcare.
On the other hand, CCER will certainly have some negative consequences, both anticipated and unanticipated. When “cost effectiveness” conclusions are drawn from clinical effectiveness data, rationing ensues, patient choices are limited, people lose their jobs, and some companies go out of business. As a recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine points out, “saying no isn’t nice.” I greet this 1.1 billion dollar initiative with muted enthusiasm.
Post Script
In my research for this blog post I came across some interesting quotes. I thought I’d add them here for your consideration:
***
And before you tell me we need such bills in order to be more scientific, take a minute and ask yourself just how scientific you think the government will be when it applies cost-cutting measures to medicine. The congress is certainly a hot-bed of evidence-based legislation, isn’t it?
– Edwin Leap, M.D.
When things go wrong, which of course they will, we reach for 2 tools to try to fix them: rules, and incentives. We see this at work in our response to the current financial crisis – but the truth is that neither rules nor incentives are enough to do the job.
When we turn increasingly to rules and incentives, they may make things better in the short run but they create a downward spiral that makes them worse in the long run. Moral skill is chipped away by an over reliance on rules that deprive us of the opportunity to improvise and learn from our improvisations, and moral will is undermined by an incessant appeal to incentives that destroy our desire to do the right thing.
Without intending it, by appealing to rules and incentives we are engaging in a war on wisdom.
Don’t get me wrong, we need rules. Most Jazz musicians need some notes on the page, and we need more rules for the bankers, God knows. But too many rules prevent jazz musicians from improvising and as a result, they lose their gifts – or worse, they stop playing altogether.
We need incentives – people have to make a living. But over-reliance on incentives demoralizes professional activity. It causes people who engage in that activity to lose morale, and it causes the activity itself to lose morality.
– Barry Schwartz, Ph.D. from his lecture at TED
