Not only are tempers rising. There is a feeling across the board in health care that it is time to speak up.
Doctors are speaking up. Brian Klepper and David Kibbe just put up an interesting post. Bob Wachter, who I knew when at Google Health, referred to an excellent article by one of my heroes, Atul Gwande in his latest post pointing out that the current system has no discernible efforts to actually manage overall outcomes and costs. Contrary to the inane platitudes one hears from certain Senators blandly assuring us that the health care system needs no repair, people across the board are pointing out that the system is broken. The center cannot hold. But we will not bow to the prediction in Yeat’s magnificent poem in which the best lack all conviction and the worst are filled with passionate intensity.The system can and must and will be fixed. It is time to speak up.
Watching legislature meet health care is like watching a slow motion train wreck. Witness the bill in contention in NJ right now. Essentially it will prohibit or drastically slow down the sale of innovative products that actually help consumers understand or manage their health. For example a product that prints out a medical history for the consumer to help him/her have a better doctor visit or a product that uses the FDA guidelines to warn about med/med interactions as Google does or a product that helps users collaborate on improving their health will all be prohibited if they actually used “health data” unless the CCHIT specifically licensed them. Imagine if every product to help you budget, plan a vacation and the finances, plan to save for your kids college education or retirement planning all had to be licensed by an agency let alone one that was never intended to do this. That is essentially what the NJ bill does. It is time to speak up.
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