WASHINGTON – Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich calls "disgraceful" the behavior of a Congress that cut $50 million of seed money to fund the work of David J. Brailer, MD, the nation's health information technology coordinator.

The money, part of the omnibus spending bill Congress recently approved, would have helped fund demonstration projects throughout the country.

But the administration at the Department of Health and Human Services, of which Brailer's office is part, could make a difference by choosing to allocate some of HHS' $60 billion in discretionary funds to finance the pilot projects, Gingrich said.

President Bush began the year by mentioning healthcare information technology in his State of the Union address, and in May he created the position of health information coordinator and named Brailer to the post. He must not withdraw his support now, Gingrich said.

"The Bush administration is at a real crossroads, and it was taken there by Congress when it voted to zero out Dr. Brailer's office," said Gingrich, founder of the Center for Health Transformation. Gingrich spoke last week at The Emerging Technologies and Healthcare Innovations Congress in Washington D.C.

In a 12,000 line-item budget totaling $300 billion, somehow Congress did not have the will to fund $50 million for Brailer's office, he said. Moreover, Gingrich added, no one in Brailer's office nor the senior staff at HHS fought for the money.

Brailer reports to HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson, who announced his resignation on Friday. In response to questions about who might succeed him, Thompson said he had heard that Gingrich, a Republican, was interested in the job.

In Washington last week, Gingrich urged his audience to take action on the healthcare IT front.

"Every person needs to go back home and call their two senators and ask them ‘are you out of your mind?'"

Brailer, who was in Evanston, Ill. on Friday was a tad more gentle on Congress.

"The Appropriations Committee had no idea what they were zeroing out," he said. "I think we got lost in the shuffle. I'm also confident we'll be reinstated. I was disappointed to see that happen."

Perhaps, as Brailer says, the lawmakers on the appropriations panel were not fully aware of what they were cutting. In Gingrich's view, it's a matter of life and death.

"It's not complicated," Gingrich said. "Thousands of people are dying each year because of medical mistakes." He called "a strange schizophrenia" in this country that allows Americans to be shocked that eight people are killed on a space mission, yet "shrug off" the thousands of people who die because of medical errors.

He urged the federal government to take four steps:

- Fully fund Brailer's office;

- Fund an electronic health record;

- Insist on a "welcome to Medicare" that provides each member with an electronic health record;

- Allow hospitals to fund IT for doctors.