Should Medicare Providers Be Forced to Use Electronic Medical Records?
Beginning next month [January 2009], Medicare will give 2 percent bonuses to doctors who write electronic prescriptions, the Washington Post reported December 5. As the largest purchaser of health care in the country—and the world!—the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) could flex its financial muscle to force doctors (and other providers) to use electronic medical records. “The administration [HHS] has the leverage as the largest health-care purchaser in the country to push more physicians to adopt more technology, more rapidly,” said Dan Mendelson, a budget and health adviser under the Clinton administration. “They could say, ‘If you want the privilege of taking care of Medicare patients, you have to use electronic medical records.’” This is just one example of the federal government’s enormous power over physicians and other health-care providers—and thus ultimately over our personal health-care choices. The Institute for Health Freedom has stressed for years that “h
