House passes healthcare IT bill
http://www.healthcareitnews.com/story.cms?id=5273
WASHINGTON – The house approved Thursday the Health Information Technology Promotion Act of 2006 (H.R. 4157). The vote was 270-148, despite reports of significant bi-partisan opposition.
The bill codifies the Office of the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology within the Department of Health and Human Services. It establishes a committee to make recommendations on national standards for medical data storage and develop a permanent structure to govern national interoperability standards.
The bill now moves to the House and Senate Conference Committee to resolve differences in the House and Senate versions. The Senate passed its bill in November 2005.
The House bill, sponsored by Rep Nancy Johnson (R-Conn.) and Nathan Deal (R-Ga.), traveled a bumpy road over the past two months as Congress dealt with other issues. Its multiple versions had to be reconciled by the House Committees of Rules, Ways and Means and Energy and Commerce.
The majority of House Democrats had said they were against the bill and the Republican leadership also expressed concern, according to Michael Zamore, a policy adviser for Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy (D-R.I.).
Kennedy and others in Congress opposed certain aspects of the bill. “The House bill does not strategically use federal funds to properly align incentives,” said Kennedy in a letter addressed to Congress, concerning H.R. 4157. “Nor does the bill do anything to help develop the secure information networks that are critical to making healthcare more efficient and better quality. There are also no provisions in the bill to ensure that we hardwire quality into the technology systems we develop,”
Kennedy declined to support the bill if his amendments were not considered. Twenty-four amendments were submitted to the House Rules Committee as of Wednesday. Kennedy also objected to the bill’s undermining of patient privacy and protection by creating exceptions to anti-kickback laws and its failure to ensure patient control over personal health information.
Patient Privacy Rights, a national consumer privacy watchdog organization stated today that the U.S. House of Representatives has made Americans’ medical records a “soft target” for misuse and theft by not allowing privacy language in the legislation.
There had been other objections to the bill outside of Congress.
Several hospital groups complained when they learned the bill could require them, as well as health insurance companies, to disclose their pricing information.
The pricing language was cut out and, as of July 26, the Federation of American Hospitals endorsed the bill.
“Among the bill’s provisions, there is the ICD-10 and the “safe harbors” clause, allowing hospitals to share information with physicians. This will speed up the adoption process and will be useful for consumers,” said Richard Coorsh, a spokesperson for the Federation.
Many industry leaders supported the bill. Among them was the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society.
“We believe that H.R. 4157 contains provisions such as grants funding and Stark Reform that will help the industry to fulfill President Bush’s goal of most Americans having an electronic health record by the year 2014, “ said H, Stephen Lieber, president and CEO of HIMSS. “The passage of this legislation is critical to moving us towards these benefits.”
On Thursday President Bush remarked on the necessity of this healthcare information technology legislation.
“Many of you are very productive because you've been able to employ information technology,” said Bush at a press conference at the National Association of Manufacturers in Washington, D.C. “In the health care field you can find places of medicine where people are walking around with handwritten files. And sometimes it's hard to read a doctor's handwriting. And sometimes the files get misplaced. And a lot of times there are medical errors as a result of that and cost inefficiencies in the system. And so health information technology will help modernize our health care system.”
