The economic stimulus package – with more than $100 billion allotted to healthcare – is signed, sealed and delivered. The State Children's Health Insurance Program is newly reauthorized.
Some are calling these feats Rooseveltian. President Barack Obama says we should be proud of the unprecedented moves forward for healthcare in just 30 days.
But there is more, much more that needs to be done. Lawmakers and Obama are both calling the stimulus package and SCHIP funding bill a mere down-payment.
Nationally recognized economist Karen Davis, president of The Commonwealth Fund, recently said the nation's healthcare and economic crises have become inextricably intertwined. "President Barack Obama has noted, rightly, that healthcare reform is integral to economic recovery," she said.
Davis' formula for improving the nation's healthcare system is similar to that already outlined by Obama: Provide affordable health coverage for all, reform provider payment, organize care delivery, invest in healthcare IT and ensure strong federal leadership.
One way America can get with the 21st Century is to move past paper medical records to electronic ones. The stimulus package lays a foundation for that. IBM Chairman Sam Palmisano recently told the Obama administration that a $10 billion investment in electronic health records will create 212,000 jobs in the United States. Palmisano also cites a recent study of more than 41 Texas hospitals where patients treated in "IT-smart" hospitals were 15 percent less likely to die.
Research! The new law gave healthcare research and prevention and wellness studies a more than $10 billion boost.
But former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich criticized the law, saying Congress has made "a $1.14 trillion bet on big government" with the stimulus package, "daring to call it a plan."
With the loss of Tom Daschle as Obama's golden nominee for Health and Human Services secretary, healthcare reform is going to need someone big to replace him. That person will have to know how to smooth out partisan politics, but also have the expertise to help implement the $100 billion infusion healthcare is getting in the stimulus package.
When I wrote about healthcare reform before the election, Congress said it was "ready to roll" on healthcare. Now that the stimulus package is passed, the proof will be in the speed with which they get something on the table.