Aug. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Vice President Joe Biden announced almost $1.2 billion in grants to help health-care providers convert to electronic medical records, during a stop in Chicago.
Biden also pitched the importance of the $787 billion stimulus program in stabilizing the economy.
“We stopped the free fall,” the vice president said. “Now we are beginning to ascend again.”
Biden made the health-records announcement at a Chicago hospital during an appearance today with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.
“You are going to be able to save a lot more lives and save tens of billions of dollars,” Biden told about 100 medical professionals and elected officials.
The grants will be funded by the stimulus program that Congress approved and President Barack Obama signed in February.
Biden’s office said the money will help health-care providers qualify for new incentives available in 2010 to those that make substantial use of electronic records.
The vice president pointed to his own medical history and his frustration with repeatedly having to provide the same information, often from a clipboard.
“How many times do I have to fill out, ‘Yeah I had asthma, yeah I had two craniotomies’?” he said.
Grants totaling $598 million will help establish about 70 health-information technology regional extension centers, which will provide technical assistance.
Information Sharing
Another $564 million will be available to states to support the development of mechanisms for information sharing within a nationwide network of medical records.
Biden said the spending would ultimately save taxpayers “tens of billions of dollars” over the next decade.
Doctor David Blumenthal, national coordinator for health- information technology at the Health and Human Services Department, joined Biden and Sebelius for a discussion with doctors, nurses and administrators.
At Mt. Sinai Hospital, where the event was held on Chicago’s West Side, hospital officials said 13 percent of patients there have no insurance.
Biden’s visit to Chicago is part of the administration’s effort to regain the initiative in the debate over legislation to revamp the health-care system.
‘Misinformation’
Obama has staked much of his first year as president on passing the health-care overhaul, which has encountered opposition from Republicans and some Democrats.
Biden said there is much “misinformation” in the debate.
“We’re not taking the system that works away from any American,” he said. “We’re making the stuff that doesn’t work, work better.”
Biden expressed confidence that health-care legislation will be passed. “Soon we are all going to get much better health care at a more rationale price,” he said.
Aides said Biden and Sebelius wouldn’t take questions from reporters.
Sebelius angered some Democrats on Aug. 16 when she suggested the administration may be backing away from a plan to establish a new government-run health-insurance program, saying it’s more important to provide competition among insurance plans.
Biden is also to appear today at a fundraising event in Chicago for Representative Debbie Halvorson, an Illinois Democrat who won her seat last November in a district that had been Republican-leaning.
This is the vice president’s third visit to Chicago since the presidential inauguration.
Many top Illinois officials were on hand for the invitation-only event, including Attorney General Lisa Madigan and Senator Roland Burris.
To contact the reporter on this story: John McCormick in Chicago at jmccormick16@bloomberg.net
