In The Examiner, Dr. Paul Hsieh asks a good question: Why does America need a “health czar?”

The concept of a health czar follows naturally from the welfare statists’ premise that government should guarantee health care to all Americans. Whenever the government attempts to guarantee universal medical care, it must also control its costs. Hence, someone must determine how health care dollars may be spent.

The Obama administration would control costs by creating a new Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research to determine which treatments are deemed most effective and thus eligible to be paid for by government. These decisions would be based on statistical averages that cannot take into account specific facts of individual patients.

Yet good physicians must consider precisely these specifics when treating their patients. If you are suffering from abdominal pain due to gallstones, who should decide whether medication or surgery would be more effective for you?

The doctor who has felt your abdomen, listened to your heartbeat, and knows your drug allergies? Or the bureaucrat who got his job by telling the right joke to the right person at the right Washington cocktail party?