Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2005

DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, AND EDUCATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2005 -- (House of Representatives - September 08, 2004)

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 754 and rule XVIII, the Chair declares the House in the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union for the consideration of the bill, H.R. 5006.

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AMENDMENT OFFERED BY MRS. JOHNSON OF CONNECTICUT

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

The Clerk read as follows:

Amendment offered by Mrs. Johnson of Connecticut:

Amendment to Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations Bill, 2005, as Reported

Offered by Mrs. Johnson of Connecticut

In title I, in the item relating to OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY ADMINISTRATION, after the aggregate dollar amount insert the following: "(reduced by $25,000,000)".

In title II, in the item relating to OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY, after the aggregate dollar amount insert the following: "(increased by $25,000,000)".

In title II, in the item relating to OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY, after the fourth dollar amount, insert the following: "(increased by $25,000,000)".

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of my amendment to accelerate the adoption of health information technology and to improve health care quality for all Americans, significantly reduce preventable medical errors, and rein in rising health care costs. My amendment would add $25 million to the Department of Health and Human Services to advance health information technology. This meets the Secretary's budget request to fund State, regional or local grants to develop health systems that coordinate with each other. This funding will also help unleash our creativity through grants to foster innovative information technologies that improve health care.

Mr. Chairman, this President and this Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tommy Thompson, have provided remarkable, aggressive, and visionary leadership to bring America's health care system into the 21st century, to improve the quality of care available to all Americans, and to dramatically reduce administrative costs, medical errors, duplicate testing, duplicate record keeping, and address all those aspects of our health care system that have already been identified by the Institute of Medicine as being the source of poor-quality care and an enormous health care cost.

At this moment, with health care costs rising at an extraordinary rate, pressing premiums up for everyone, including our seniors under part B, we must push forward to develop interoperable electronic health records, e-prescribing and all those other applications of modern information technology to our health sector. It is indeed bizarre that other sectors of the economy, manufacturing, banking, many other sectors, are far ahead of the health care sector in integrating, absorbing, using and exploiting information technology to both improve the quality of operations in those sectors and the quality of the product as an outcome. Information technology will dramatically improve the quality of health care available to all Americans and holds out the promise of reducing costs tremendously.

For example, health information technology will reduce medical errors which account for 44,000 to 98,000 deaths annually, more than motor vehicle accidents, breast cancer, or AIDS. It will reduce known medical errors that cost $30 billion to $35 billion annually. Health IT will save $5.4 billion a year annually that is spent on unnecessary services because tests or second opinions cannot be located. It will also eliminate costly defensive medical practices which account for as much as $108 billion in unnecessary health care costs each year. Health IT will allow physicians to detect negative drug interactions which result in 7,000 deaths each year.

My friends in this body, we must do everything we possibly can to back Secretary Thompson and this President in moving health information technology into our health care sector as rapidly as possible. These innovative grants, the work that they are doing to establish standards, the pressure they are putting on the private sector to develop interoperable technologies is all exactly what needs to happen; and it is my hope that we will be able to accomplish the goal of this amendment, to provide the full $50 million that the new office, of which Dr. Brailer is now the head as the national coordinator of information technology, that their full budget allocation request can be fulfilled.

I have talked with the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula) about this. Rather than pursuing this amendment further, I am going to withdraw it. But I did want to stress how important it is that we back this office with its full dollar amount. I hope that in the course of the development of this bill, that that goal will be fulfilled.

Mr. REGULA. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. I commend the gentlewoman for what she is trying to do here. My concern is that if we diminish OSHA's impact, we will have more people going into the hospital. Part of the objective of OSHA is to have safety in the workplace and get fewer people in. I think her desire to improve the quality programs that are embodied in the amendment here, we will be sensitive to this in conference. We have no idea what the other body's bill is going to look like and where the emphasis is going to be. I appreciate the fact that the gentlewoman will withdraw her amendment, but we will keep this very much in mind.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. REGULA. I yield to the gentlewoman from Connecticut.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. I thank the chairman very much for his comments.

Mr. Chairman, I also want to say both to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula) and also to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) that you have brought forward for this body a very fine, balanced bill in a difficult era. The money that you have put into critical health care activities that the Federal Government funds, like the children's hospitals and also into public education as well as job training and a number of other areas is really a tribute to the kind of thoughtful leadership that this body is capable of.

I do withdraw my amendment, recognizing the importance and value of OSHA, and I appreciate your willingness to look at this critical function as you move this bill toward its final conclusion.

Mr. REGULA. I thank the gentlewoman for her contribution.

The CHAIRMAN. Without objection, the amendment is withdrawn.

There was no objection.