"Insurance companies ... [have] cooked up a clever way to justify exclusions from formularies by founding and funding a group called the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review, or ICER.... ICER, which holds itself out as a kind of Consumer Reports for drugs, is basically an industry-backed comparative effectiveness calculator. That ICER is industry backed isn't the problem, it's that it uses comparative effectiveness to lend an air of legitimacy to the formulary shenanigans. Different people respond differently to medications. The blue pills don't always work the same as the red pills. Individuals, it turns out, are different."  MORE >>