I googled "Hudson Institute" to find info on Betsy McCaughey who Gerri
references as Bloomberg.com source:
Suggest we evaluate the source. I'm leery of any source Rush Limbaugh
promotes.
[edit] Commentary on 2009 Stimulus Bill
On February 9, 2009, McCaughey wrote an opinion piece for Bloomberg.com in
which she posited that the 2009 stimulus bill was "dangerous to []our
health".[6] She claimed that the stimulus bill would cause a newly created
office to "monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the
federal government deems appropriate and cost effective" which was, in
essence, "enforcing uniformity." The portions of the text to which she
cites, however, do nothing of the sort. Sec. 3001(b) of the bill, which sets
forth the "purposes" of the substantive provisions, does not in and of
itself do anything but set forth the reason for the substantive
provisions.[7] The bill gives the Office of the National Coordinator for
Health Information Technology no duties to review actual treatments but only
to establish standards for a technology infrastructure that would allow
doctors to better guide their patients' treatments and to ensure that
doctors are given the appropriate tools to establish a proper course of
treatment.
The "new position" to which McCaughey referred is the Office of the National
Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONCHIT) This position was
already established on April 27, 2004, by President George W. Bush, under
Executive Order #13335 [8], and was therefore not a newly created office.
Regarding the duties of the ONCHIT, the draft House version of the Bill
required, in Title XXX Section 3001[9], that the National Coordinator ensure
that medical records meet certain technical standards to protect privacy,
ensure physician office records can be communicated with local hospitals to
prevent incompatibilities and inefficiencies, and other such technical
requirements. The National Coordinator is also tasked with ensuring that the
public has the opportunity to participate in the establishment of technical
standards to ensure that the process be open, and promote competition in the
private sector for health information technology. The Bill thus assigns the
National Coordinator a technical role analogous to that of the FCC, which
may define the technical standards to ensure that cellphones operate within
a system, but has no role in determining the content of speech on
cellphones, or how customers choose to use them.
McCaughey's claims that the National Coordinator's office was a "new office"
that would control medical treatment was propagated extensively through the
media as Rush Limbauparpppgh, Fox News and the Wall Street Journal repeated
McCaughey's interpretation of the Stimulus Bill language.
Actually, Executive Order (EO) 13335[2] states: "Section 1. Establishment.
(a) The Secretary of Health and Human Services (Secretary) shall establish
within the Office of the Secretary the position of National Health
Information Technology Coordinator." (emphasis supplied). EO 13335
established "the position," not the "Office." In contrast, the Stimulus bill
states, on page 441, ''SEC. 3001. OFFICE OF THE NATIONAL COORDINATOR FOR
HEALTH INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY. ''(a) ESTABLISHMENT.-There is established
within the Department of Health and Human Services an Office of the National
Coordinator for Health Information Technology (referred to in this section
as the 'Office'). (Emphasis supplied).
It is a meaning with a distinction. A "position" is a job. It's one person.
"Office," on the other hand, refers to:
Noun 1. federal office - a department of the federal government of the
United States department of the federal government, federal department
government department - a department of government [3]
Moreover, the "position" created by President Bush was to, in Section 3 (v)
"Not assume or rely upon additional Federal resources or spending to
accomplish adoption of interoperable health information technology"; In
contrast, the Office created in the Stimulus bill provides considerable
funding:
$700,000,000 for comparative effectiveness research: Provided, That of the
amount appropriated in this paragraph, $400,000,000 shall be transferred to
the Office of the Director of the National Institutes of Health (''Office of
the Director'') to conduct or support comparative effectiveness research: .
. . In addition, $400,000,000 shall be available for comparative
effectiveness research to be allocated at the discretion of the Secretary of
Health and Human Services (''Secretary''): Provided, That the funding
appropriated in this paragraph shall be used to accelerate the development
and dissemination of research assessing the comparative effectiveness of
health care treatments and strategies, including through efforts that: (1)
conduct, support, or synthesize research that compares the clinical
outcomes, effectiveness, and appropriateness of items, services, and
procedures that are used to prevent, diagnose, or treat diseases, disorders,
and other health conditions; and (2) encourage the development and use of
clinical registries, clinical data networks, and other forms of electronic
health data that can be used to generate or obtain outcomes data:(pages
173-175 of the Stimulus bill; see note 7 below).
The previous writer also indicated that "The bill gives the Office of the
National Coordinator for Health Information Technology no duties to review
actual treatments." Obviously, he or she was mistaken, as demonstrated in
the preceding quote.
from Wikipedia
Rayilyn Brown
Director AZNPF
Arizona Chapter National Parkinson Foundation
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