Today's Opinions: Applying comparative effectiveness research to a range of health indicators; Australia's model health care system; What about blocked stem cell research?

Comparative Effectiveness—Of What? Journal Of The American Medical Association
Significant comparative effectiveness research (CER) efforts should be dedicated to understanding the effectiveness of investments across broad determinants of health instead of focusing primarily within the health care domain alone (David Kindig and John Mullahy, 8/25).

Find A Way To Resume Blocked Stem Cell Research Detroit Free Press
[S]cientists seeking treatments and cures for maladies such as diabetes and heart disease face new roadblocks in the wake of a federal trial judge's order that blocks federally funded embryonic stem cell research (8/25).

For A Model Health Care System, How About Australia's? Nieman Watchdog
I go to a primary care physician who charges the maximum-allowable $60 (all currency figures in this report are in U.S. dollars at the current exchange rate) per visit, half of which is automatically refunded into my bank account by [Australia's health program called] Medicare after I pay the fee with my debit card (William Claiborne, 8/24).

How A Small Employer Preps For Health-Care Reform Bloomberg/BusinessWeek
My body's going to hell just as the new health-care reform law is starting to take effect. Great timing. I'm not sure its provisions are going to help my sore back any time soon. They're definitely going to affect my small business—and many others like mine—right away (Gene Marks, 8/24).

Stop The Madness The Wall Street Journal
Repealing ObamaCare is another [step towards containing the growth of government], so that health-care costs are not massively increased--estimated by some to be $2 trillion in the first full decade--and so that individuals and their doctors can make their own medical choices (Pete Du Pont, 8/25).

Why California Should Just Say No To Prop. 19 The Los Angeles Times
We can say with near certainty, however, that marijuana use would increase if it were legal, because some people now abstain simply because it is illegal. We also know that increased use brings increased social costs (Gil Kerlikowske, John Walters, et al, 8/25).

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This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.