Some of the country's top CEOs identified reducing healthcare costs among their top legislative priorities Thursday as they called on Congress and the president to take care of "unfinished business."
The Business Roundtable, a group of about 160 CEOs of leading U.S. companies, supports legislation that would provide incentives for electronic health record systems, citing statistics that indicate widespread adoption could result in savings of $165 billion annually.
At a briefing in the nation's capital on Thursday, the roundtable called for legislative action to address the increasing costs of healthcare and energy.
"To succeed in today's increasingly international economy, policy leaders and employers must work together to find bipartisan solutions to maintain America's competitiveness," the roundtable said in its briefing statement.
"Enactment of HIT legislation is a top priority for Business Roundtable," Business Roundtable CEO John J. Castellani wrote in a July 21 letter to Congressman John D. Dingell, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. He noted the roundtable is made up of CEOs of companies with $4.5 trillion in annual revenues and that the companies provide workplace health coverage for more than 35 million Americans.
"We believe our healthcare system must use current technologies to promote efficiencies, reduce errors and provide the technological platform to assess the quality and value of healthcare," Castellani said.
He said the Business Roundtable members appreciate Dingell's work on the PRO(TECH)T Act, bipartisan legislation that would create interoperable standards for healthcare information technology.
While the legislation, H.R. 6357, is out of committee, it has yet to be passed into law. Its opponents have called for stricter measures for protecting medical privacy.
"We appreciate your continued review of how to protect personal health information without over-regulating or creating undue burdens within the system," Castellani wrote.
In your view, is the PRO (TECH)T Act ready for passage? Send your comments to Contributing Editor Bernie Monegain at bernie.monegain@medtechpublishing.com.