Hyperbole and misdirection aren’t going to solve the problem of the slippery slope towards government-run health care–it’s going to hasten it.

No–not “death panels” (although this Palinian shibboleth certainly falls into this category) but rather statements to the effect that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s decision to remove Avastin’s breast cancer indication was “a crude cost calculation.” Not true. Not helpful.

In the Wall Street Journal, David Rivkin and Elizabeth Foley write that, “The FDA made a crude cost calculation; as everyone in Washington knows, it wouldn't have banned Avastin if the drug cost only $1,000 a year, instead of $90,000.”

“Everyone?” Not really. For those who understand what actually goes on at the FDA it’s not about cost as much as it is about choice. And on that note Rivkin and Foley get it right:

“The Avastin story is emblematic of the government's broader agenda to ration care based on cost and politics. Once ObamaCare comes into full force, such rationing will be pervasive. When the government sees insufficient benefit, all but the wealthiest and most politically connected will have to go without.”

We are being railroaded down the tracks towards Uncle Sam, MD–but the FDA’s ruling on Avastin (whether you agree with it or not) was based on the agency’s reading of the science. Trying to tag the FDA with a decision based on cost may be convenient–but it’s wrong.

Such hasty proclamations trivialize the urgent and legitimate arguments against the current cost-versus-care direction of American healthcare – and makes it all the more difficult to counter and correct.