By Matthew Holt

Not content with being the catalyst for the unleashing of a torrent of vitriol in the direction of those Milquetoast individuals who are in favor of better information systems in health care, in the mild expectation that it might improve care delivery, Betsy McCracker is back at it again. This time the NY Times prints her letter. And in it she says:

These changes will affect all of us, at the least by requiring that our treatments be recorded in a federally mandated electronic database and guiding the choices our doctors make. Yet no hearings were held, no expert witnesses called, no opinions gathered from patient advocates, doctors’ groups, the elderly or other stakeholders.

Apart from the fact that there’s no evidence of one “electronic database”, she’s missed a couple of things.

First, hearings, witnesses, etc, etc, have been held for on this topic for years, and witnesses were called in the weeks before the stimulus bill—Microsoft’s Peter Neupert among them. Peter may not be an expert in Betsy’s eyes, but I think most of us would concede that he knows something about the topic (even though much of his advice was ignored).

Secondly, Betsy McCracker seems to be missing a minor point. The Obama campaign was not shy about telling anyone who listened that they were going to spend up to $50 billion on health IT in the next five years. It was on their website, and talked about by their health care advisers non-stop, as the WaPo noticed in early December.

Why are we supposed to be surprised that they did what they said they were going to do? Isn’t that the point of democracy? So Betsy, who won the election?

 Email This Post