The Crushing Costs of Addressing the Crushing Cost of Health Care
Ted Bromund /
President Obama vows to “address the crushing cost of health care” by, among other things, “invest[ing] in electronic health records and new technology that will reduce errors, bring down costs, ensure privacy, and save lives.” Sounds great. Let’s take a quick trip across the Atlantic to see how that’s worked out for the British.
In two words, not well. In 2002, Tony Blair ordered Britain’s National Health Service to participate in the National Programme for IT, and thus launched an ambitious attempt to computerize the entire Service. The initial projected cost: 2.3 billion pounds. It was widely described as the largest IT project in the history of the world.
Fast forward to late 2008. Costs had risen to a minimum of 12.7 billion pounds, and since the system was 4 years late – and counting – its final cost, actual full in-service date, and even whether it would ever work at all remained up in the air. The Financial Times described it as exhibiting an unhealthy level of ‘Great Leap Forward Syndrome.’
So what went wrong? (more…)