Ignacio Valdes Editorializes on HIMSS response to HR 6898

Ignacio Valdes is the editor of Linux Med News and has been a proponent of open source in health care. He recently posted this notice of his editorial to the Open Source Working Group of the American Medical Informatics Association. It (and associate posts at LMN) may or may not be of interest:

"Health Information and Management Systems Society HIMSS has presented their response http://linuxmednews.com/PDFs/Final_HIMSS_Response_to_HR_6898.pdf to H.R. 6898 which favors open source software and Veterans Affairs VistA: '...The private sector makes significant investments in research and development for healthcare IT products. Healthcare IT is available via a competitive market in which vendors compete on the basis of price, quality, and functionality of a product. The development, routine updating, and provision of an open source "healthcare information system" is not the role of the federal government and such product development should remain in the private sector...'

I have penned a saucy little editorial response here: http://linuxmednews.com/1222727586/index_html

-- IV

A Medical Banking Addendum to the Financial Stability Plan Pending Before Congress

Creating lasting value for taxpayers by linking the 700 billion bail out plan to healthcare benefits

A pivotal feature of the current "bail out" plan is the perception of limited value for the American taxpayer. Clearly in the plan, taxpayer funds are at risk, however, the President, US Treasury and Federal Reserve all believe that a partial to full return of the 700 billion is possible.

Presumably the payback funds (original principal and profits) will go into a general account. We believe this creates the feeling of paying for the broken heater at home - it needs fixing but it sure doesnt feel good when the money leaves our hands.

For this reason, I suggest linking the bail out plan to a healthcare benefit for the uninsured. This could help to solve the perception issue of value.

In this model, a means test could be efficiently applied to qualifying  individuals. This "community care platform" could be supervised by a commission appointed by Congress to oversee the appropriate transfer of "bail out" principal and profits to community healthcare benefits.

I further recommend that a percentage of the profits be used to fund President Bush's previous call that every American have a personal healthcare record in 10 years. This could have a lasting impact on the quality of care for every taxpayer after the profits have dried up.

Linking the financial stability plan with a healthcare benefit is a message that could resonate well with the American taxpayer. Changing the perception of value by showing a concrete return may turn this intensely negative issue into a positive.

John Casillas
johnc at mbproject.org
Founding Director
Medical Banking Project
www.mbproject.org
(615) 794-2009