The Reason Foundation's Shikha Dalmia had an article yesterday at Forbes that listed some of the lies President Obama has been laying on the masses, suggesting perhaps our Dear Leader's tongue might be dipped not in "unvarnished truth," but something less refreshingly aromatic.

The fib-finder on Dalmia's BS detector has fixated on Obama's assertions (or former assertions) that under his radical health care reboot:

1. No one will be compelled to buy coverage
2. No new taxes will be imposed on employer benefits
3. Government can control rising health care costs better than the private sector
4. A public plan won't be a Trojan horse for a single-payer monopoly
5. Patients don't have to fear rationing

It's on the last point that ABC's John Stossel gets all ambivalent, particularly with regards to Dalmia's worries that "Obama's stimulus bill...commits over $1 billion to conduct comparative effectiveness research," from which "a board will then 'direct financing' toward approved, standardized treatments," following which "doctors will find it much harder to prescribe newer or non-standard treatments not yet deemed effective by health care bureaucrats."

Responds Stossel:

I say, so what?

If the State is going to spend our money on other people's health care, doesn't the state have the right -- in fact, the obligation -- to limit choices? Everyone wants unlimited care. Care keeps getting more expensive. Pay for it yourself, then fine. But when you ask us to pay, and with Medicare ruinously unsustainable because of its trillion dollar deficits, I'd like government to set more limits. CER may become a politicized boondoggle, but the State ought to have some scientific justification for saying yes and no.

The danger is not CER itself, but a monster one-size-fits-all government health care plan. That will retard innovation because whatever treatment the political appointees decide to pay for it today will become the standard for years to come.