The nationwide electronic medical records system proposed by the Bush administration could end up costing taxpayers as much as $200 billion, according to a new study released Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine. A panel of experts who looked at the issue concluded that a national network could cost up to $156 billion to set up and an additional $48 billion to operate annually. The team from the Harvard Interfaculty program for Health Systems Improvement concluded that the healthcare industry can probably be expected to only pay for about 20 percent of that total without changes in incentives.
Still, the authors are optimistic that a solution can be found. Speaking about the government, lead author Raina Kaushal says, "I don't see them having to foot the bill. They can create the incentives. Then the private system can run with it."
- see this story from the Washington Times