If I were Obama, I'd rescind the whole ARRA that has not been spent (of which only 5% has been used to date), leave healthcare alone except for a few fixes s.a. apply federal aid to poor clinics, and generally work at getting the deficit back into line. Having a deficit that will eventually leave each household with $500000 in debt is serious...
I personally can't stand the guy. I don't like "socialism" or "communism", and he represents a little bit of both. As an independent social conservative, the less big government gets involved in our economy the better, and this includes healthcare, which affects my career.
Most of the "big boy" EHR vendors get their CCHIT certification yearly, and Allscripts even gets up to 2/year. You see, a lot of them get their money back at the end of the year. CCHIT was reincorporated twice- once on 12/2006 after I found that their incorporation papers included a phrase stating that all profits would be redistributed to the founders (this can be downloaded from
http://msofficeemrproject.com/Page3.htm , look for PDF1 and PDF2 at the bottom of the page. They now repay HIMSS through special schemes, s.a. rental contract payments (they SHARE THE SAME BUILDING). So these guys get their money back one way or another... but not AC and similar "small potatoes" EHRs.
I'm hoping that HITECH will cut out CCHIT once and for all and minimize the standards requirements. That would be a good thing for everyone.
Al
