A post by Andrew Barna

President Bush gave his State of the Union last night and, as expected, healthcare was featured in his domestic agenda. Also as expected, the President spoke about EMRs, extending tax benefits to individuals and small businesses, and HSAs. As I mentioned on Healthcare Tomorrow yesterday, the President's healthcare playbook is a monograph called Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise, and the President stuck to the playbook. There were a few comments that I thought were interesting, however.

First, President Bush preceded his comments on healthcare with a call to study the effect of the Baby Boomers on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. While the provider community has been thinking about the Baby Boom in terms of increased volume, President Bush's comments remind us that the government is going to have to pay for all of those extra bypasses and torn ACLs. I haven't necessarily seen estimates on the increase in Medicare spending as a result of the Baby Boomers, but the numbers could be pretty scarry.

Second, the President merely mentioned the use of healthcare information technology to help reduce medical errors and reduce cost. I suppose I was hoping for a little bit more on the topic, given his declaration that all Americans will have an EMR in ten years, and the billions of dollars that the industry is going to be spending on the technology, and the fact that David Brailer has been touring the country drumming up support for the initiative. I hope this isn't an indication of the governments financial commitment to HIT, because the $60M given to the effort last year wasn't but a drop in the bucket either.

Lastly, President Bush's most vigorous healthcare comments were on making health insurance more portable. Wasn't this what HIPAA was supposed to do?

Nonetheless, I intend to give the President's healthcare program a more thorough discussion on Healthcare Tomorrow in the coming weeks, so I hope you will join me there.

So, in the words of our President, "Good night, and God bless America."