Stimulus Bill -- Nationwide System of Medical Records?

[HakunaMatata2]

As I have said in previous threads, this is the first step towards socialized medicine. The next step is to force medicare participating doctors to accept government prescribing guidlines for ALL patients. The government will be deciding your medical care, not you and the doctor. This is why this why they tried to slip it in and hope no one saw it.

I quoted you because I felt your message cannot be repeated enough.

 

[Muushka]

It will certainly make things easier for Drs and Hospitals when looking at patient history to determine a diag.- and drug interactions- as well as cutting down on drug seekers getting multiple scripts from multiple docs. Dh is a primary care Dr - hi is cautious aboyt it but thinks it will help in the long run IF done correctly.

My fear is not that someone will have access to my medical information. And it is not that I do not want to make my doc's life easier. Of course I want the best medical care possible. That is why I only use 1 pharmacy, because they can figure out if anything will interact incorrectly.

But as is mentioned above, this is the first step towards socialized medicine. And telling people that no, they cannot have that treatment for what ever reason.

Lets hear this one more time:

As I have said in previous threads, this is the first step towards socialized medicine. The next step is to force medicare participating doctors to accept government prescribing guidlines for ALL patients. The government will be deciding your medical care, not you and the doctor. This is why this why they tried to slip it in and hope no one saw it.

...yes, that is what Daschle said to do, slip it into a bill so nobody notices it, and strike when the new administration is hot and can do no wrong.

 

[joviroxx]

So, now that they've addressed a central system to cut costs, since it's a huge priority (right?), wonder when the issue of astronomical legal costs and malpractice insurance cost due to frivolous lawsuits and ridiculous suits come around? Tort reform anyone?

 

[Muushka]

So, now that they've addressed a central system to cut costs, since it's a huge priority (right?), wonder when the issue of astronomical legal costs and malpractice insurance cost due to frivolous lawsuits and ridiculous suits come around? Tort reform anyone?

Do you think for one minute that a congress made up of lawyers are going to do that?

 

[PeterPan09]

Good point, Minnie: If the fear is of abuse, then oppose the abuse.

All this talk about fear misses the fear most Americans have, that medical care in this country is so incredibly expensive, and getting more so, that, even with benefits and insurance, they will not be able to afford what even the most conservative perspective would determine that they need.

That's my fear-especially as I get older. If you use Web Md or even google to research your medical issues-your searches are already archived.

 

[Minnesota!]

Computerizing records will help prevent a lot of repeat tests.

For example:
The records of past xrays etc will be availible if you had them done in the past and you see a new specialist the new Doctor could pull up your records with your permission and may not need a whole new set of xrays etc.

Doctors could get a complete list of medications you have been given in the past and the list of reactions you may had to any of those meds which is extreamly helpful but even more so if you arrive at a hospital
unconscious.

Just my 2 cents.

Ditto! I am actually taking a course right now (needed for my degree) on Electronic Medical Records. It fascinates me and I think its a great idea. Cuts down paperwork, redundancy in tests/procedures, centralize the whole bit. Love it!

 

[bicker]

That's my fear-especially as I get older. If you use Web Md or even google to research your medical issues-your searches are already archived.

The key is to google a lot. If you're white, google Sickle-Cell Anemia. If you're male, google gynecological problems. If you're childless, google pregnancy complications. That'll mess 'em up!

 

[Christine]

Great article in The Washington Post business section today on this topic. I love Steven Pearlstein. I think he's a great economic writer for the layperson.

Bloviation vs. Reality on Stimulus Health-Care Provision


By Steven Pearlstein
Friday, February 13, 2009; Page D01

To most Americans, the language on Page 52 of the report of the House Committee on Appropriations would have seemed perfectly sensible.

The report spelled out the committee's rationale for including $1.1 billion for something called "comparative effectiveness research" in the massive economic stimulus bill. For those of not steeped in the argot of health policy, that's research done by doctors and statisticians who troll through large number of patient records to determine, for any particular disease, which treatments work best.

"By knowing what works best and presenting this information more broadly to patients and healthcare professionals, those [treatments] that are most effective . . . will be utilized, while those that are found to be less effective and in some cases more expensive will no longer be prescribed."

There's nothing particularly new about comparative effectiveness research -- the National Institutes of Health, along with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, have been doing it for years, with a budget last year of about $335 million. But with the strong backing of the Obama administration, House Democrats are anxious to ramp up the effort, which nearly all experts agree is a necessary first step to reforming a broken health-care system.


To some, however, the wording in last month's House report was anything but innocuous. To them, it was a warning shot across the bow, the camel's nose under the tent of a government-run health system, the dangerous first step on the slippery slope toward European-style health-care rationing.

" 'Stimulus' bill may change health care forever," blared the headline in the Washington Times over a commentary written by Amy Menefee, communications director for the Galen Institute, a nonprofit think tank that aims to bring free-market ideas to the health-care debate.

"Ruin Your Health With the Obama Stimulus Plan," warned Betsy McCaughey, former lieutenant governor of New York and adjunct senior fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute, in a commentary distributed by Bloomberg News several days later.

No sooner had the McCaughey commentary hit the tape then -- what a coincidence! -- radio bloviator Rush Limbaugh was quoting it on his syndicated show, warning that under the world envisioned by the Obama stimulus bill, old people would be denied all costly medical treatments under a new "duty to die" regime meant to save taxpayer money. The McCaughey commentary also got a prominent mention by uber-blogger Matt Drudge.

The next day, the Wall Street Journal's senior economics writer, Stephen Moore, was on Fox News warning that the stimulus bill would put the government in control of what medical treatments you and your family would be allowed to receive. That set the stage for Megyn Kelly's interview with Sen. Arlen Specter, who was virtually browbeat by the anchor until he promised that "we are not going to let the federal government monitor what doctors do."

The Journal's editorial page picked up the campaign the next day, drawing the line of causation from electronic health records -- another beneficiary of the stimulus bill -- to comparative health records to government price controls and then a government-run "health tech monopoly."

This right-wing brushfire didn't start on its own, of course. It was a work of political arson by the country's drugmakers and medical device makers, which have the most to lose if there is solid research showing that some of their most expensive and high-margin products aren't really better than the low-priced spread. The flames were also fanned by "disease groups" like Easter Seals and the American Cancer Society, which fear that any attempt to determine what works best will inevitably lead to a one-size-fits-all approach to treating people with serious chronic conditions.

It's not that these various groups have no reason for concern. If comparative effectiveness research is done badly, or if the results are used simply as an excuse to deny insurance coverage for all expensive treatments, then there would be plenty of reason to get out the pitchforks and storm Capitol Hill. And there are surely examples from Britain and other countries of people being denied access to the latest drugs and procedures, including some that are significantly more effective than other treatments.

What the critics don't have, however, is any shred of evidence that the professionals who do this research are incompetent or have any but the best intentions in trying to figure out what treatments are the most effective for patients. There is no reason to believe that once this clinical research is completed, it cannot be used in a disciplined, scientific way by physicians, economists and medical ethicists to determine whether there are drugs, tests, surgical procedures or devices that simply don't deliver enough benefit to justify their cost. And there is no reason we cannot set up reasonable procedures, overseen by independent health professionals, to protect patients who can demonstrate a special need for a treatment that is not normally cost-effective.

This isn't Britain. This is a country in which there is a deep cultural and political preference for autonomy and individual choice, particularly when it comes to health care. Ours is a country that values competition, embraces innovation, respects markets, and is suspicious of politicians and government bureaucrats. It is a country that is both willing and able to spend more than any other country on its medical care.

But ours is an economy that is sinking under the weight of a health-care system that costs twice as much as any in the world while delivering poorer health outcomes. The cost of health care has crippled entire industries, disadvantaged our companies in international competition and brought millions of families into bankruptcy. Worst of all, in denying vital medical services to the 40 million Americans without health insurance, we engage in the most immoral kind of medical rationing imaginable -- rationing by the ability to pay.


The good news is that the $1.1 billion for comparative medical research has apparently survived the House-Senate conference on the stimulus bill, despite behind-the-scenes efforts to remove it or hamstring it with provisions prohibiting any kind of cost-benefit analysis or circumscribing how the results can be used in determining insurance coverage.

This little kerfuffle, however, is a warning to the Obama administration that the coming battle over health-care reform is likely to be every bit as vicious and divisive as the one that defeated the Clinton health plan, requiring not only care in designing the plan but the need to develop easy-to-understand data and compelling anecdotes that demonstrate in a compelling way how wasteful and ineffective our current system has become.

Steven Pearlstein is moderator of a new Web site, On Leadership, at http://washingtonpost.com/leadership. He can be reached at pearlsteins@washpost.com.

 

[ntsammy5]

The key is to google a lot. If you're white, google Sickle-Cell Anemia. If you're male, google gynecological problems. If you're childless, google pregnancy complications. That'll mess 'em up!

If youre a right winger google - Intelligent Responses

 

[TLSnell1981]

As I have said in previous threads, this is the first step towards socialized medicine. The next step is to force medicare participating doctors to accept government prescribing guidlines for ALL patients. The government will be deciding your medical care, not you and the doctor. This is why this why they tried to slip it in and hope no one saw it.

AND then....private insurance will follow these "standards". It's a "chip away" game. One chip at a time. Little by little...so, they think no one will notice what has happened.

Of course, there are some that think this is a good thing...then, there are some who don't believe obama's agenda.

Of course, most people don't have a clue how Hillary's "failed" healthcare plan actually changed our system....and it wasn't in a postive way.

If this was such a good thing...why did they slip it into the spendulus package? Why did Daschle advise this? Why no debate on the floor?

 

[npmommie]

The HIPAA-type rules will still apply.

The government, your employers, your friends or neighbors should not be able to get access to your medical reacords.

That is why the data base is supposed to strengthen your privacy protections for your health records, and will require notifications when the data is breached.

and I am certain it will be breached. I don't trust the govt to safeguard personal information.

 

[minnie61650]

The key is to google a lot. If you're white, google Sickle-Cell Anemia. If you're male, google gynecological problems. If you're childless, google pregnancy complications. That'll mess 'em up!

I google lot.
I have researched lots of illness.
I am white and I resarched Sickle- Cell anemia and it's cousin thalassemia which is a disease that is known to affect people from the Mediterranean area not to mention different types of leukemia etc.


I have a keen interest in rare diseases, the newest medical
procedures, new medication and side effects from mdicines.
In fact when a friend or family member has a medical question or symptom they oftn ask me because they know I will gladly research it for them.

A few years ago my Sister-in- law was having bad stomach pains.

She said she had stopped eating everything but her "Wheaties " and asked me what could be in the Wheaties that would cause her so much pain.

I asked her if she put milk on the cereal and when she said yes I told her it could be her gall bladder and to see her Doctor.
Sure enough she needed her gall bladder removed.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[Judy from Boise]

I think what you are failing to factor in is that many MDs are lazy, and fail to keep up on best practice changes. I can't tell you how many docs I see ordering expensive broad spectrum antibiotics, instead of a cheaper more focused drug because they are too lazy to look it up. I see them failing to start treatment for CHF etc with the foundation cheap and proven drugs like diuretics.....and go with expensive combos. Or, ordering new tests because they are too lazy to look up the info even when provided. Ordering wound care treatments that have been proven harmful for 15 years!
Trust me many MDs can use all the help they can get in providing good care. I can get behind mandated protocols for many things.

 

[CowboyCO]

I just read the following:

"President Obama has called for the creation of a nationwide system of electronic medical records...Congress has included about $20 billion [in the stimulus plan] to jump-start the initiative."

According to the article, your health records would be put in digital form and sent to the Department of Health and Human Services who would have oversight of these records. Health care agencies that haven't complied with this by 2014 would be fined.

So my question is, what if I don't WANT my medical records to be sent to the government? What if I don't think my medical records are any of the government's damn business? Is it just tough -- the government has a right to anything they want from you -- even the most personal information about your body?

ETA: I know that Ann Coulter had a big rant about this in her column today. And I don't typically like Ann Coulter -- but I don't like this either!!!!

So, let me see if I understand this completely.

The same liberals that opposed the monitoring of select international calls between suspected terrorists overseas, and the same people that say that abortion is a private matter between a woman and her doctor, is now OK with the government seizing all private medical records of every American.

OK -- Got it. Let Freedom Ring!

 

[Christine]

So, let me see if I understand this completely.

The same liberals that opposed the monitoring of select international calls between suspected terrorists overseas, and the same people that say that abortion is a private matter between a woman and her doctor, is now OK with the government seizing all private medical records of every American.

OK -- Got it. Let Freedom Ring!

Cowboy,

I know the Washington Post article I posted was LONG, but read it. Yes, I back the electronic records and I also agree with what Judy from Boise posted. Somehow this BEAST of medical care has to get under control and I don't consider electronic medical records any more an invasion of privacy than what is currently going on. If you have health insurance, everything you have is already out there and, as far as I'm concerned, there is no oversight whatsoever at this point. Does it all make me a little nervous--you bet. There are always breaches when you go electronic. Shoot, where I work (DoD) we can no longer use flash drives on our computers because of a security breach a few months ago. For the most part, I think Big Brother in the DoD does a good job of keeping our secrets safe, but yes there are mistakes and this plan won't be without flaws.

I am also not against wiretapping of "select international calls between suspected terrorists" but against the use/abuse of wiretapping to listen in on private U.S. citizens under the guise of "suspected terrorism."

 

[minnie61650]

If this was such a good thing...why did they slip it into the spendulus package? Why did Daschle advise this? Why no debate on the floor?

It was not just slipped in. Pesident Obama has said all through his campaign that he wanted to computerize medical records.

I think Daschel wa refering to slipping in a heath care plan in any bill. There was no health care plan in the stimulas bill just changing medical records over to e-files so Doctors and hospitals all over the US could with your permission access your files.

The reason it was a part of the stimulas bill is because the
provision will not only result in $10 billion in savings but also further improvements in care and costs as we implement health care reform, while creating over 40,000 new jobs that will endure.

In fact Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine, one of the three Republicans supporting the Obama administration-backed bill, helped craft the health IT provisions of the Senate bill, according to a press release from her office. "This provision will not only result in $10 billion in savings but also further improvements in care and costs as we implement health care reform, while creating over 40,000 new jobs that will endure," Snowe said.

Link to full article:

http://govhealthit.com/articles/200...e-in-senates-stimulus-bill.aspx?s=GHIT_100209

 

[minnie61650]

Why no debate on the floor?

I guess the reason was that most of the congressmen Republicans and Democrats alike felt this was a "good thing".

In fact Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine, a Republican helped craft the health IT provisions of the Senate bill.

 

[ameraumi]

I think it is actually a good thing. With all of DH's current treatments it would be easier for all of his drs to receive his medical reports. It cuts down on the number of papers switching hands and saves a few trees. I can also see how it will help cut down the time it takes to get workmans comp/STD/LTD/disability approved for people.

 

[Muushka]

I guess the reason was that most of the congressmen Republicans and Democrats alike felt this was a "good thing".

In fact Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine, a Republican helped craft the health IT provisions of the Senate bill.

That does not surprise me in the least.

 

[barkley]

and I am certain it will be breached. I don't trust the govt to safeguard personal information.

i moreso don't trust "the government" to reccognize a breach-or what information they must safeguard.

this is a very personal issue for myself and my dh. we worked in health and social services and hired in when staff were HIGHLY trained security and confidentiality. it was drilled into us who had access to our information/who did not/how to verify if the person claiming to have clearance did in fact-and how to reccognize a potential security breach. that's not the case anymore. more and more staff in all aspects of government work are being contracted through temp agencies or are outsourced call centers that have never received more than a spiral binder of rules and regulations with no oversight to see if they've reviewed them let alone understand or follow them.

i cannot count the number of times i had to stop someone i worked with or supervised from releasing information or trying to access information that they were legaly barred from. there's a mindset that all of government works like "criminal minds" and that so long as there's a government data base on something anyone who works for the government is allowed access-that's just not the case, and those data bases are set up to supposedly compartmentalize information such that individuals or braches can only access the peices they need to administer their programs. some programs have receipt capacity for information but don't have disclosure (social security for example can get some information from the welfare department without a release of information from a client-welfare department has to get client permission and a release to get much less info. from social security).

the real life circumstance that makes me very concerned about this proposed system was in large part the basis for my husband's resignation as a information systems administrator. one of the systems he administered and was responsible for security on involved government held health and insurance records. there were/are laws that STRICTLY restricted access to that data base-extending beyond HIIPA-and my dh took his responsibility to protect that data very seriously. his government employer (like many others) began hiring managment that had no background or training in the security laws-and my dh came in one day to find that his manager had left him instructions to not only release restricted information to an inappropriate source but to arrange to provide a terminal with security clearance so that source AND ANYONE THEY WANTED TO ALLOW ACCESS TO could read, download and disseminate the data dh was dogged in showing his manager how the law and all security protocols prohibited this-manager insisted "oh that does'nt apply to us-we're all government". dh showed manager how he (and manager) could be criminaly prosecuted for doing so-manager insisted "oh they would never do that-the prosecuter works for the government so he knows we do this all the time". dh flat out refused and ended up resigning when the manager (with higher up's backing who also were ignorant/flippant about the laws) went around dh to have a contract worker who just did what he was told-no questions asked was being told to do the task

i understand the convenience some people see from this but for me the potential for misuse outweighs any of the benefits.