Who is Judy Faulkner? Chances are you dont know her -- but her politically connected taxpayer-subsidized electronic medical records company may very well know you. Top Obama donor and billionaire Faulkner is founder and CEO of Epic Systems which will soon store almost half of all Americans health information.
If the crony odor and the potential for abuse that this epic arrangement poses dont chill your bones you aint paying attention.
As I first noted last year before the IRS witch hunts and DOJ journalist snooping scandals broke out Obamas federal electronic medical records (EMR) mandate is government malpractice at work. The stimulus law provided a whopping $19 billion in incentives (read: subsidies) to force hospitals and medical professionals into converting from paper to electronic record-keeping systems. Penalties kick in next year for any provider who fails to comply with the one-size-fits-all edict.
Obamacare bureaucrats claimed the governments EMR mandate would save money and modernize health care. As of December 2012 $4 billion had already gone out to 82535 professionals and 1474 hospitals; a total of $6 billion will be doled out by 2016. What have taxpayers and health care consumers received in return from this boondoggle? After hyping the alleged benefits for nearly a decade the RAND Corporation finally admitted in January that its cost-savings predictions of $81 billion a year -- used repeatedly to support the Obama EMR mandate -- were um grossly overstated.
Among many factors the researchers blamed lack of interoperability of records systems for the failure to bring down costs. And that is a funny thing because it brings us right back to Faulkner and her well-connected company. You see Epic Systems -- the dominant EMR giant in America -- is notorious for its lack of interoperability. Faulkners closed-end system represents antiquated hard drive-dependent software firms that refuse to share data with doctors and hospitals using alternative platforms. Health IT analyst John Moore of Chilmark Research echoing many industry observers wrote in April that Epic will ultimately hinder health care organizations ability to rapidly innovate.
Question: If these subsidized data-sharing systems arent built to share data to improve health outcomes why exactly are we subsidizing them? And what exactly are companies like Faulkners doing with this enhanced power to consolidate and control Americans private health information? Its a recipe for exactly the kind of abuse thats at the heart of the IRS and DOJ scandals.
As I reported previously a little-noticed HHS Inspector Generals report issued last fall exposed how no one is actually verifying whether the transition from paper to electronic is improving patient outcomes and health services. No one is actually guarding against GIGO (garbage in garbage out). No one is checking whether recipients of the EMR incentives are receiving money redundantly (e.g. raking in payments when theyve already converted to electronic records). And no one is actually protecting private data from fraud theft or exploitation.
But while health IT experts and concerned citizens balk money talks. Epic employees donated nearly $1 million to political parties and candidates between 1995 and 2012 -- 82 percent of it to Democrats. The companys top 10 PAC recipients are all Democratic or left-wing outfits from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (nearly $230000) to the DNC Services Corporation (nearly $175000) and the Americas Families First Action Fund Democratic super-PAC ($150000). The New York Times reported in February that Epic and other large firms spent hundreds of thousands of dollars lobbying for the Obama EMR giveaway.
Brandon Glenn of Medical Economics observes its not a coincidence that Epics sales have been skyrocketing in recent years up to $1.2 billion in 2011 double what they were four years prior.
Its also no coincidence as a famous Democratic presidential candidate once railed that the deepest-pocketed donors are often granted the greatest access and access is power in Washington. That same candidate Barack Obama named billionaire Democratic donor Faulkner as the only industry representative on the federal panel overseeing the $19 billion EMR incentives program from which her company benefits grandly.
The foxes are guarding the Obamacare henhouse. The IRS vultures are circling overhead. The shadow of tyranny and the stench of corruption are unmistakable. If you see something say something. BOLO is our watchword.
Michelle Malkin is the author of Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats Crooks & Cronies (Regnery 2010).
Who is Judy Faulkner? Chances are you dont know her -- but her politically connected taxpayer-subsidized electronic medical records company may very well know you. Top Obama donor and billionaire Faulkner is founder and CEO of Epic Systems which will soon store almost half of all Americans health information.
If the crony odor and the potential for abuse that this epic arrangement poses dont chill your bones you aint paying attention.
As I first noted last year before the IRS witch hunts and DOJ journalist snooping scandals broke out Obamas federal electronic medical records (EMR) mandate is government malpractice at work. The stimulus law provided a whopping $19 billion in incentives (read: subsidies) to force hospitals and medical professionals into converting from paper to electronic record-keeping systems. Penalties kick in next year for any provider who fails to comply with the one-size-fits-all edict.
Obamacare bureaucrats claimed the governments EMR mandate would save money and modernize health care. As of December 2012 $4 billion had already gone out to 82535 professionals and 1474 hospitals; a total of $6 billion will be doled out by 2016. What have taxpayers and health care consumers received in return from this boondoggle? After hyping the alleged benefits for nearly a decade the RAND Corporation finally admitted in January that its cost-savings predictions of $81 billion a year -- used repeatedly to support the Obama EMR mandate -- were um grossly overstated.
Among many factors the researchers blamed lack of interoperability of records systems for the failure to bring down costs. And that is a funny thing because it brings us right back to Faulkner and her well-connected company. You see Epic Systems -- the dominant EMR giant in America -- is notorious for its lack of interoperability. Faulkners closed-end system represents antiquated hard drive-dependent software firms that refuse to share data with doctors and hospitals using alternative platforms. Health IT analyst John Moore of Chilmark Research echoing many industry observers wrote in April that Epic will ultimately hinder health care organizations ability to rapidly innovate.
Question: If these subsidized data-sharing systems arent built to share data to improve health outcomes why exactly are we subsidizing them? And what exactly are companies like Faulkners doing with this enhanced power to consolidate and control Americans private health information? Its a recipe for exactly the kind of abuse thats at the heart of the IRS and DOJ scandals.
As I reported previously a little-noticed HHS Inspector Generals report issued last fall exposed how no one is actually verifying whether the transition from paper to electronic is improving patient outcomes and health services. No one is actually guarding against GIGO (garbage in garbage out). No one is checking whether recipients of the EMR incentives are receiving money redundantly (e.g. raking in payments when theyve already converted to electronic records). And no one is actually protecting private data from fraud theft or exploitation.
But while health IT experts and concerned citizens balk money talks. Epic employees donated nearly $1 million to political parties and candidates between 1995 and 2012 -- 82 percent of it to Democrats. The companys top 10 PAC recipients are all Democratic or left-wing outfits from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (nearly $230000) to the DNC Services Corporation (nearly $175000) and the Americas Families First Action Fund Democratic super-PAC ($150000). The New York Times reported in February that Epic and other large firms spent hundreds of thousands of dollars lobbying for the Obama EMR giveaway.
Brandon Glenn of Medical Economics observes its not a coincidence that Epics sales have been skyrocketing in recent years up to $1.2 billion in 2011 double what they were four years prior.
Its also no coincidence as a famous Democratic presidential candidate once railed that the deepest-pocketed donors are often granted the greatest access and access is power in Washington. That same candidate Barack Obama named billionaire Democratic donor Faulkner as the only industry representative on the federal panel overseeing the $19 billion EMR incentives program from which her company benefits grandly.
The foxes are guarding the Obamacare henhouse. The IRS vultures are circling overhead. The shadow of tyranny and the stench of corruption are unmistakable. If you see something say something. BOLO is our watchword.
Michelle Malkin is the author of Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats Crooks & Cronies (Regnery 2010).
