At a press conference on his budget strategy on Tuesday, President-elect Barack Obama said health care IT can be one of the approaches used to address the economic crisis, CQ HealthBeat reports. Health reform initiatives are a critical part of addressing the country's current economic problems, Obama and his advisers have said.
Obama said helping local hospitals and health care providers establish electronic billing and electronic health records would be part of doing "a smart job of investing in health care modernization." He said that such an effort would provide "an immediate boost to the economy, in some cases working with state and local governments, but it's also laying the groundwork for reducing our health care costs over the long term."
Obama has tasked his advisers with finding solutions to the economic crisis "where we're getting both a short-term stimulus, and we're also laying the groundwork for long-term economic growth."
Obama did not specify how much money he would invest in health IT, but the health care overhaul plan he proposed during his presidential election campaign called for the investment of $50 billion toward the adoption of EHRs and other types of health IT.
The president-elect and his advisers have pushed aside concerns that a major health care overhaul would be unaffordable next year, CQ HealthBeat reports. The federal budget deficit is projected to be $1 trillion or more for fiscal year 2009 (Reichard/Nylen, CQ HealthBeat, 11/25).