New Coalition Formed

It's the latest thing for former members of Congress -- push for a health care information technology law. Of course, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has been preaching that paper kills for a few years. Now former Sen. John Breaux and former Rep. Nancy Johnson have formed the "Health IT Now Coalition!". According to a press release,

Health IT Now! believes federal legislation should include:

-- Permanence in statute for a federal responsibility to lead a public-
private process to establish standards for system interoperability,
product certification, and quality measures and an accelerated process
for standards improvement;
-- Federal financial incentives to practitioners of care to facilitate the
adoption of Health IT, and for communities, states, and other entities
to plan HIT components and develop Health Information Exchanges;
-- Federal focus on consumer empowerment through patient education tools
to encourage patient use of electronic health records and provider
quality information; and
-- Federal leadership of a federal-state process to resolve policy issues
central to a secure and safe care system, like privacy and professional
licensure, to provide a secure and safe care system.

Note to Coalition -- this is already occurring without a law.