“My life would be a living hell without these injections,” said Mr. Lamb, a 44-year-old carpenter from Lake Stevens, Wash., who was crushed between two trucks in 1996. “I don’t deserve to be sentenced by a committee to a life of agony.”
Mr. Lamb was testifying on Friday before Washington State’s Health Technology Assessment committee. The committee has authority under state law to determine which medical devices and procedures Washington will cover for state employees, Medicaid patients and injured workers, about 750,000 people in all.
While all states, private insurers and the federal Medicare program decide what to cover, this state’s program is attracting nationwide attention, in part because its process is public and open. That provides a living laboratory of the complexities of applying evidence-based medicine, something that is becoming more common as a way to rein in health care costs.
“This kind of scrutiny is increasingly the norm, rather than the exception,” said
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