WASHINGTON – President Bush in his State of the Union address on Jan. 23 told Congress that healthcare information technology should be advanced to reduce costly medical errors, and he urged the use of healthcare IT to promote healthcare price transparency.

In State of the Union speeches, where hundreds of issues need to be addressed but words are limited, Bush chose to mention healthcare IT for reducing medical errors in the past. This year’s reference to healthcare IT was the third mention in three years in his State of the Union addresses.

Justin Barnes, board member of the Electronic Health Records Vendors Association, said that from an industry perspective, he couldn’t be more pleased.

“HIT was mentioned in the first 10 minutes of the speech and it’s the third year in a row that the president mentioned HIT specifically,” he said. “It just solidifies the administration’s commitment to lowering our nation’s healthcare costs and saving lives.”

The president’s promotion of price transparency was part of his August 2004 plan for value-driven healthcare, requiring that all Americans have electronic health records within the next decade.

Though his State of the Union Address was clearly a plea for the new Democrat-controlled Congress to approve his plan to send more troops to Iraq, Bush spent almost equal time addressing favorite Democratic issues, including improvements to healthcare.  

Bush proposed tax reform to help uninsured Americans purchase private health insurance and “level the playing field” for those who now pay taxes on their health insurance premiums through employer-based health plans.

He also urged the re-allocation of federal funding to states to help the poor and hard-to-insure receive private health insurance.

America’s Health Insurance Plans strongly supports President Bush’s proposals, according to Karen Ignagni, AHIP’s president. 

“Enacting common-sense tax incentives for individuals will go a long way toward helping millions secure and maintain the coverage they need,” she said. “This plan also recognizes that states are an essential partner in any program to cover the uninsured. Federal incentives that provide a helping hand to states that tackle this problem are a great way to spur progress.” 

David Roberts, vice president of government relations at the Health Information Management Systems Society, said the president’s call in the State of the Union address for Congress to reduce the number of earmarks it places in the federal budget by 50 percent is unlikely to go anywhere.

“Earmarking is in the eye of the beholder,” he said. In 2005, the president included 13,000 earmarks in his budget, amounting to $18 billion, according to Roberts.

Roberts said earmarking is important to many members of Congress because it allows them to apply funding toward hospitals and regional health information organizations in their states for the advancement of healthcare IT.