Draft Kennedy/Enzi IT Bill Includes
Grants, Loans to Spur Adoption of Technology
Draft legislation by Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee leaders would provide $163 million in both fiscal 2008 and 2009 and unspecified amounts the following three years for grants and loans to health care providers and states to spur adoption of health information technology.
The bill, under development by HELP Committee Chairman Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and ranking minority member Michael B. Enzi (R-Wyo.), is similar to legislation passed by the Senate late in 2005 (S. 1418) that failed to advance beyond a House/Senate conference last year.
Like its predecessor, the bill under development by Kennedy and Enzi would create a public/private partnership that would be charged with making health IT recommendations to the Department of Health and Human Services within a year of the bill's enactment, according to a copy of the bill obtained by BNA.
The federal government then would have 30 days to act on the recommendations. HHS has formed its own such panel, the American Health Information Community.
The draft bill would codify in federal law the establishment of the National Coordinator of Health IT within HHS to oversee creation of a health IT infrastructure.
Demonstration Project.
The proposed legislation also would create a demonstration project to integrate information technology into clinical education and includes provisions to foster development of health care performance measures. The bill contains a section on privacy and security of health care records.
Kennedy and other Democratic leaders said that moving health IT legislation would be a high priority health item following the 2006 congressional elections in which Democrats took control of the House and Senate.
Since then, however, lawmakers and aides have said IT legislation is likely to take a back seat to other health care priorities, such as reauthorizing the State Children's Health Insurance Program.
For example, Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy (D-R.I), co-chairman of the House 21st Century Health Care Caucus, said May 16 that health IT legislation will have to await the election of a new president.
In the meantime, Rep. Kennedy said some IT incentives could be adopted this year as part of must-pass legislation for the Food and Drug Administration or SCHIP.
Lack of Funding.
In addition to a full health care agenda, a lack of available funding is likely to keep health information technology off the congressional radar screen for the foreseeable future, congressional aides said at a March 26 briefing.
With the Senate and House using pay-as-you-go rules, it will be difficult to fund a health IT bill in 2007, particularly since Congress must reauthorize SCHIP and address the Medicare payment cut for doctors, some aides said.
S. 1418 contained about $650 million in federal funding for IT adoption. The House IT bill (H.R. 4157) took a different approach to getting IT into the health care system. It would have established safe harbors from federal anti-kickback rules to allow large health care providers, such as hospitals, to provide IT systems to smaller ones, such as physician offices.
The use of safe harbors versus grants was one reason House and Senate negotiators failed to compromise on their legislation.
The draft bill is available at http://op.bna.com/hl.nsf/r?Open=sfak-73qs4h .
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