Health Information Technology Promotion Act of 2006

HEALTH INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY PROMOTION ACT OF 2006

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Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes.

Our Nation's health care system is arguably the most inefficient and costly system in the industrialized world. We spend approximately $1.7 billion annually on health care, and yet many of our citizens are in poorer health than the citizens of countries that spend far less. That is because our Nation's health care system is wrought with problems, including skyrocketing costs that make it difficult for Americans to afford the care that they need, inconsistent quality, and huge disparities in care and access. Clearly, the status quo is not working and something has to be done to fix these problems. Health care experts around the country agree that health information technology, or HIT, could provide a partial solution to our problems.

Now, while estimates vary, the potential savings from HIT could reach between $81 billion and $170 billion annually by improving coordination of care, patient safety, disease management, and prevention efforts. Under the Republican bill we are debating today, however, none of these savings will be realized. That is because the bill will do nothing to move our Nation forward on health information technology.

The CBO agrees with the Democrats, and I quote, ``CBO estimates that enacting H.R. 4157 would not significantly affect either the rate at which the use of health technology will grow or how well that technology will be designed and implemented.'' So I don't want anybody to be fooled here today. Don't let the Republicans sell you this lemon.

My friends on the other side of the aisle would have us believe that this bill is going to transform our health care system into a model of efficiency, and it is all a bunch of hype. Let me mention a few ways in which this bill is flawed.

First of all, there is virtually no funding, and I stress that, virtually no funding to help providers, such as physicians or hospitals, to purchase this technology. The meager amount of funding authorized in this bill will barely make a dent in advancing the use of HIT. Instead of making grants or loans available to doctors to help them purchase equipment or train employees, Republicans have decided to roll back anti-kickback and self-referral protections so that doctors will have to rely on other types of providers for this technology. Make no mistake about it, this is going to open the door for fraud and abuse to run rampant and will eventually add to our health care costs.

Secondly, this bill does nothing to improve protections for medical privacy. Electronic health information systems that make it easier to exchange medical information require new privacy protections to be implemented and strongly enforced. In spite of the privacy breaches we saw this year at the Veterans Administration, and also at CMS, Republicans don't seem to think there is a need to strengthen our Nation's privacy laws. But I have to tell you, Americans are not going to stand for this. They are not going to want their most personal information floating around cyberspace without any reasonable safeguards.

There are a number of other problems with this bill, Mr. Chairman, but let me finally talk about the process in which this bill was developed. House Republicans have taken an opportunity for all of us to work together on an important issue and they have squandered it. The Senate was able to pass a bipartisan bill that would accomplish a lot more than the bill we are debating today. They authorize grants and loans, they don't roll back fraud and abuse protections, and they ensure interoperability. But they did this all on a bipartisan basis in the Senate.

Democrats in the House tried to offer that bill as a substitute in the Rules Committee yesterday, but we were denied the substitute. And it is a shame that House Republicans couldn't follow the Senate's lead and work with Democrats to move our Nation forward on HIT and improve the health of all Americans.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this bill, because although we think that health information technology is very important, this bill will not accomplish the goal.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to say, from personal experience in my home State of New Jersey over the last few months, I have visited a number of hospitals throughout the State and looked at their health IT, and I have also talked to a number of physicians. The reason that this legislation is not going to accomplish the goal of really expanding health IT, and I can tell just from my experiences with these hospitals, first of all, most of the doctors say that even for a small group practice, they probably have to invest about $50,000 or more into health IT. And given the reimbursement rates and what is happening right now, most physicians, particularly small group physicians in rural areas and in urban areas, are not able to make that kind of investment. So that is why we need a funding source.

This bill has very little funding, minimal. And the substitute, which is based on the Senate bill, on a bipartisan basis, would provide the funding to make a meaningful difference so that we would have an increase in health IT. That is what this is all about. That is why we should reject this bill and adopt something like the Senate bill.

In addition, with regard to the privacy provisions, when I visited the hospitals in New Jersey, it was very clear to me that when you start to move with a lot of these electronic and high-tech systems, there is going to be a real problem with privacy that may not exist now with traditional systems. Moving to an electronic system, you have to have additional privacy guarantees. And we feel, again, the Democratic substitute that was rejected by the Rules Committee had those privacy guarantees. I think they are going to be part of our motion to recommit.

This is the time to address the privacy issue in the context of this bill, and I would ask that we reject the legislation.

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