Dear AAPS Action Team,
 
The Health Subcommittee of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce will be holding a hearing on Health Information Technology legislation next week.  If your member of Congress is listed below, please contact his office by Tuesday morning of next week. Ask to speak to the health LA (legislative assistant). Tell him you are a doctor and explain briefly why the federal government should not be promoting, mandating, or funding Health Information Technology. This needs to develop in the free market; the congressman should oppose all HIT legislation.
 
AAPS Talking Points:
 
1. It is an unconstitutional intrusion into private affairs. Congress has no constitutional authority to dictate how private medical records should be kept. The only nexus for the exercise of such power is the filing of a claim for federal payment. Thus, any records related to services for which no federal claim is made must be exempt.
 
2. The bill is really a form of corporate welfare. The cost of acquiring a compliant medical records system is an unfunded mandate on private practitioners, and hence an unlegislated and unconstitutional tax. The benefits primarily accrue to the private partner in the public-private partnership, not to the general welfare.
 
3. There is no evidence that the bill will work as intended. It is assumed that HIT will improve quality or reduce costs, but there is much evidence to suggest that the opposite will occur.
 
4. Mandating HIT amounts to regulating the practice of medicine. �Quality monitoring� of practitioners effectively dictates how medicine must be practiced to obtain a government-approval rating. Congress has neither the expertise nor the constitutional authority to direct the practice of medicine. It cannot delegate to government agencies or private organizations authority that it does not have.
 
5. HIT is vulnerable to terrorism and disaster. Congress should make no law regarding the use of computerized medical records that does not require that all such records systems are EMP-hardened and have adequate backup electrical generating facilities (and stored fuel for same) to keep the system up (including air conditioning) for 60-90 days in the event of disruption of the electrical grid. Has there even been a study of the effect of a prolonged blackout on a hospital that is solely dependent on electronic records?
 
 
Frank Pallone (6th Dist.,D-NJ) (Chair) (202) 225-4671 -
Henry Waxman (30th Dist., D-CA) (202) 225-3976 -
Edolphus Towns (10th Dist, NY) (202) 225-5936 -
Bart Gordon (6th Dist., TN) (202) 225-4231 -
Anna Eshoo (14th Dist., CA) (202) 225-8104 -
Gene Green (29th Dist., TX) (202) 225-1688 -
Diana DeGette (1st Dist., CO) (202) 225-4431 -
Lois Capps (23rd Dist., CA) (202) 225-3601 �
Thomas Allen (1st Dist. ME) (202) 225-6116 �
Tammy Baldwin (2d Dist. WI) (202) 225-2906 �
Eliot Engel (17th Dist. NY) (202) 225-2464 -
Janice Schakowski (9th Dist., IL) (202) 225-2111 -
Hilda Solis (32d Dist. CA) (202) 225-5464 -
Mike Ross (4th Dist., AR) (202) 225-3772 -
Darlene Hooley (5th Dist., OR) (202) 225-5711
Anthony Weiner (9th Dist. NY) (202) 225-6616 -
Jim Matheson (2d Dist. UT) (202) 225-3011 -
 
Republicans
 
Nathan Deal (9th Dist., GA) (Ranking member) (202) 225-5211 -
Ralph Hall (4th Dist. TX) (202) 225-6673 -
Barbara Cubin (At large WY) (202) 225-2311 �
Heather Wilson (1st Dist., MN) (202) 225-6316 �
John Shadegg (3rd Dist., AZ) (202) 225-3361 �
Steve Buyer (4th Dist. IN) (202) 225-5037 �
Joseph Pitts (16th Dist., PA) (202) 225-2411 �
Michael Ferguson (7th Dist., NJ) (202) 225-5361 -
Michael Rogers (8th Dist., MI) (202) 225-4872 -
John Sullivan (1st Dist., OK) (202) 225-2211-
Sue Myrick (9th Dist. NC) � (202) 225-1976 -
Timothy Murphy (18th Dist. PA) (202) 225-2301 -
Michael Burgess (26th Dist., TX) (202) 225-7772 -
Marsha Blackburn (7th Dist., TN) (202) 225-2811 -
 
Thanks,
Michael
 
Michael D. Ostrolenk, MA, MFT
Director of Government Affairs
Association of American Physicians and Surgeons
http://www.aapsonline.org
[email protected] Phone: 301-717-0599
Fax: 240-209-0576
 
Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, Inc. A Voice for Private Physicians Since 1943 Omnia pro aegroto