Although it is becoming increasingly obvious to serious policy wonks of all political persuasions that Health IT is not the panacea it has been made out to be, Barack Obama is still peddling EMR as a magical elixir. Newsweek has a good piece about this particular brand of Dr. Obama’s snake oil:
He claims that a shift to electronic medical records will help save families up to $2,500 a year in his first term. Independent experts say that’s wishful thinking.
Why is Senator Obama making such implausible claims about the potential savings associated with EMR adoption?
These rosy projections make universal health care seem almost painless, particularly when the savings estimates far outweigh the costs of Obama’s plan (his campaign projects $50 billion to $65 billion a year in new government funds).
In other words, Obama’s health care “reform” plan promises to be horrifically expensive. So, in order to obscure its cost, he is misrepresenting the savings potential of EMR adoption. But his numbers are so preposterous that they have apparently been disputed by at least one member of his own campaign:
We find his statements to be overly optimistic, misleading and, to some extent, contradicted by one of his own advisers.
I don’t think Dr. Obama’s EMR snake oil qualifies as ”change we can believe in.” Do you?
Comments 1
“electronic medical records will help save families up to $2,500 a year in his first term.”
Obama is either a certifable moron and/or an shameless deceitful charlatan. I lean to the latter.
Posted 18 Jun 2008 at 7:41 pm ¶Post a Comment