Any time you read something as ludicrous as "the stimulus is dangerous to your health," you know it's time to get some fresh air.
An opinion piece by Betsy McCaughey on Bloomberg.com says just that - and, thankfully, caregivers are stepping up to set the record straight.
Health care professionals nationwide are writing to their newspapers today to refute claims by McCaughey and-get this-Rush Limbaugh on two provisions in the stimulus package: comparative effectiveness research and health IT. Both are designed to provide health care professionals with objective, up-to-date information on treatments, tests and procedures available to them.
So why are opponents suddenly crying wolf?
Because this latest partisan flap isn't about your health care. It's not about electronic health records or comparative health research. No, this is about politics. It's a desperate attempt to turn practical, cost-cutting provisions into a news media boogeyman.
Even those in the Bush Administration understood the need for health IT. In 2006 the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality / HHS (led by Bush appointee Mike Leavitt) conducted a study (.pdf file) and found tremendous potential for improvements to our health care system through the use of health IT.
Caregivers understand the crisis facing our nation's health care system. The burden of paperwork has been directly linked to increased medical errors, lower productivity, and skyrocketing costs. Likewise, the lack of information sharing across the medical profession reduces the quality of patient care and leads to unnecessary costs. For example, the American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging stresses the need for health professionals to have electronic access to their patients' medical records to better provide the best possible care to our senior citizens.
Remember what the President said about cutting waste out of the system? Well, this is how it's done, people.
Not to be left out of the partisan splash-fest, Rush Limbaugh took a running belly-flop into the pool with his broadcast today.
We tried to decipher Rush's twisted logic, but ThinkProgress does it better. The main point Rush is making seems to be that health IT will strip individuals of their privacy. (Is that right, Rush?) If that's the argument, we're curious to see how Rush feels about debit cards and electronic banking.
Don't let Rush Limbaugh control the debate on health care. Help set the record straight by joining with doctors, nurses, home care aides and other health care professionals in writing to your local newspaper about the benefits of health IT.
Update: Senator Baucus has released a Q&A document to set the record straight on the new health IT provisions. You can download the PDF here.
