Feds take health care open source
President Obama has made transparency a hallmark of his presidency, with open source an integral part of this pledge. Obama has also expressed a desire to overhaul the U.S. health care system.
This week those two goals came together this week in Connect, "a(n open-source) gateway between multiple federal organizations and the proposed national health information network," according to Modern Healthcare.
The goal is to reduce the cost and complexity of tying into the U.S. national health information network, with three of the largest federal health care provider organizations, Defense and Veterans Affairs departments, plus the Indian Health Service, each participating in Connect. Connect will "tie together health information exchanges, integrated delivery networks, pharmacies, government health facilities and payors, labs, providers, private payors and other stakeholders into a 'network of networks,'" according to the project site.
Very ambitious, and dearly needed, given the myriad of silo-ed data sources in health care today.
The U.S. federal government has been actively consuming open source for years, but only recently has it actively sought to improve efficiency and lower costs by releasing open-source projects like those housed on the Department of Defense's Forge.mil site.
The times they are a changin'.
Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.
Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to The Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. You can follow Matt on Twitter @mjasay. 
For me, it boils down to forced charity. I feel for those that cannot afford health care, but I believe that the private sector will be able to more effectively help them than the government. Only the government can take your money, give it to somebody else and not be called a thief.
Try this scenario
1) Lose your job and the company sponsored health care
2) Apply for health insurance as an individual
3) Get turned down by health insurance corporation
4) Go to step 2
It has less to do with costs than access to health care.
Other industrialized nations, such as Japan who kicks our behind in many industries, provides health care which removes that burden from employers. That makes Japanese (and other nations' corporations) more competitive in the global market.
The USA is foolish to think that the current situation will sustain itself.
Multiple deductibles.
You not only have your major deductible and usual 80/20 split, but now "to save even more money", you have an individual deductible selection on your outpatient coverage, your Rx coverage, etc.
Health insurance carriers are digging their own grave. They are counting on the fact that they are well-monied, lobbying-intense entities that can withstand an (possible) 8-year presidential term that is set on reforming them.
However, I think that the health insurance companies underestimate the degree to which they are held in contempt by the average American consumer. And the FUD around the degree to which health care will suffer if it becomes readily available to everyone, nationalized or otherwise, don't hold water anymore.
- by scubajp April 10, 2009 9:06 PM PDT
- Wonderful, now we can have hackers get hold of our medical records! Great move!
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