{"id":3514,"date":"2009-05-16T06:58:46","date_gmt":"2009-05-16T06:58:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zmetro.com\/?p=3514"},"modified":"2009-05-16T06:58:46","modified_gmt":"2009-05-16T06:58:46","slug":"the_machinery_b","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/?p=3514","title":{"rendered":"The Machinery Behind Health-Care ReformHow an Industry Lobby Scored a Swift, Unexpected Victory by Channeling Billions to Electronic Records"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2009\/05\/15\/AR2009051503667.html\">Robert O&#8217;Harrow, Jr<\/a>: <\/p>\n<blockquote><p><i>When President Obama won approval for his $787 billion stimulus package in February, large sections of the 407-page bill focused on a push for new technology that would not stimulate the economy for years.<br \/><Br><br \/>\nThe inclusion of as much as $36.5 billion in spending to create a nationwide network of electronic health records fulfilled one of Obama&#8217;s key campaign promises &#8212; to launch the reform of America&#8217;s costly health-care system.<br \/><Br><br \/>\nBut it was more than a political victory for the new administration. It also represented a triumph for an influential trade group whose members now stand to gain billions in taxpayer dollars.<br \/>\n<br \/><Br><br \/>\nA Washington Post review found that the trade group, the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, had worked closely with technology vendors, researchers and other allies in a sophisticated, decade-long campaign to shape public opinion and win over Washington&#8217;s political machinery.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Automation certainly makes sense, but we taxpayers should not be subsidizing it&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2009\/05\/15\/AR2009051503667.html\">Robert O&#8217;Harrow, Jr<\/a>: <\/p>\n<blockquote><p><i>When President Obama won approval for his $787 billion stimulus package in February, large sections of the 407-page bill focused on a push for new technology that would not stimulate the economy for years.<br \/><Br><br \/>\nThe inclusion of as much as $36.5 billion in spending to create a nationwide network of electronic health records fulfilled one of Obama&#8217;s key campaign promises &#8212; to launch the reform of America&#8217;s costly health-care system.<br \/><Br><br \/>\nBut it was more than a political victory for the new administration. It also represented a triumph for an influential trade group whose members now stand to gain billions in taxpayer dollars.<br \/>\n<br \/><Br><br \/>\nA Washington Post review found that the trade group, the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, had worked closely with technology vendors, researchers and other allies in a sophisticated, decade-long campaign to shape public opinion and win over Washington&#8217;s political machinery.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Automation certainly makes sense, but we taxpayers should not be subsidizing it&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,8,18,9,17,11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3514"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3514\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}