Dem candidates to pump money into health IT
If specifics are any indicator then it’s the Democratic presidential candidates who are so far the leaders in promoting health IT as a significant part of the health care plans of a future administration.
All of the candidates have labeled health IT as an essential component of health care reform, though it’s the leading contenders who have so far published proposals with the most detail:
Hillary Clinton proposed federal investments of some $3 billion a year in health IT as part of a plan to modernize health care delivery by improving quality, reducing errors and eliminating waste, on the way to a conservatively estimated $35 billion a year in health care cost savings. She’s on record as wanting all people who do business with the government to move towards adopting electronic medical records.1
Barack Obama wants to invest $10 billion a year over five years in order to speed broad adoption of health IT throughout the U.S. health care system, and will phase in requirements for a full implementation of health IT along with the “necessary” federal resources to make that happen.
John Edwards, without making any specific dollar pledge, also signaled his support for new health IT technologies as a way of promoting evidence-based medicine, and particularly pointed to implementation of electronic medical records as a way of cutting down on the more than $1,000 per person administration costs which he said is probably the fastest growing part of health care costs today.
The other five Democratic candidates have also mentioned health IT in varying degrees as part of their plans for health care, though it’s probably Gov. Bill Richardson who has so far made the most innovative funding proposal.
As president, he would promote the purchase of what he calls 21st Century Health Care Bonds to jump start the nation’s investment in health IT. The funds from the bonds would be used to help physicians and health care facilities to cope with the upfront costs involved with health IT adoption, with a public-private board responsible for issuing health IT grants.
The candidates all stressed, however, that they see health IT as just a part of the puzzle to improvements in health care rather than an answer in itself.
At a recent Washington, DC, policy forum, for example, Clinton’s health policy advisor Andrea Palm said the senator sees the impact of health IT on cost and quality as the main driver, with the integration of quality and the measurement of delivery of services as other important factors.