Avoiding Britain's example

A British court just ruled that the UK government unfairly denied anti-dementia drugs to Alzheimer’s patients. The government refused to cover the drugs in order to save money.

This kind of penny-pinching happens all too often in Britain, thanks to its national “comparative effectiveness” agency. The agency conducts studies on the relative effectiveness of various medical treatments, analyzing how different options stack up against one another. Those findings determine which treatments get covered by the British healthcare system.

Some US lawmakers want a similar agency. It too would be used t...