Doug Almost Got It Right

It was a moment in the debate no one paid attention to...except for me

It was on the tip of the Governor of North Dakota’s lips.

“We talk about why do we have the most expensive health care in the world? It’s because the federal government got involved the same way they did with EVs, and they said we're going to subsidize a particular kind of software back in 2008 under Obama.”

Who was in that meeting deciding to subsidize the software, Doug? Common- say her name!

“the only industry, in the world, that has absorbed one trillion dollars of IT and became less productive.”

What technology made them less productive? What company got a lion's share of the money Doug? Common’ say their name.

“They saw less patients per day,”

Whose fault was it Doug?

“Things get more expensive and less competitive,”

Alas, he did not say her name. He did not call out the largest monopoly in this country. The organization that owns the backbone of our healthcare system.

Judith Faulkner and Epic.

Epic CEO Judy Faulkner was the ONLY corporate representative on Obama's Health IT council in 2009.

The genius idea? Doctors would receive $44K each if they bought the software. $38B.

Then got paid $17K more to prove they were using it.

They were penalized if they weren't using it.

The ONC decided the threshold that software would need to comply with this mandate, which conveniently met Epic's feature set.

They had 3 record fines -- $155M, $57M, $145M -- against the lesser competitors of Epic.

A health system invests millions and at times BILLIONS into Epic, you then can't just 'leave' when Epic underperforms or overcharges.

Epic also blocks out all innovators making access to their APIs costly, and should an innovator be able to stomach the costs- those costs get passed onto their customers which get passed onto you guessed it - us.

No one is fearless enough to take on Epic. They own the government, they own the media, and their own clients are fearful of retaliation for speaking out.

Doug was right, a big part of healthcare expense can be attributed to the backbone of our healthcare system, the EMR. I just wish he had the guts to call out Epic by name.