Everything looks good.  I’m in the pink.

On the way out the door, I got a couple of memos.  One had to do with what appears to be an already operational online medical link to VA.  What a concept! – I said to myself.  The helper at the primary care desk, a vet himself, said, “Please tell the American people we’re terribly sorry for taking the initiative on this.  We mean well, y’know?”

I told him I would try to say something good about it when I had the chance.

He cried and said thanks.

Boo hoo.

VA has been computerized in a number of important ways for some time.  The system was seriously upgraded during the Clinton era, which means that patients have had the benefit of doctor consults with their complete history a click away, in a clinic, in an operating suite, or at bedside for a good fifteen years or more.  And during this time it’s been easy as pie for a veteran to request a download to a CD of a complete medical file if he or she wants to move, say, from Boston to LA, or from Detroit to Dallas.

Can you say:  “Portability”?

So this online link is available now through VA; and soon, civilians may have the same cost-saving hi-tech fix, assuming the administration’s plans come to fruition.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/30/government-pushes-to-crea_n_340157.html

But of course, the dead-enders on health reform will cry, darkly, about that dastardly, really awful government takeover of health care.  Never mind that, according to the link above, it seems tech companies stand to make a bundle on government contracts which will allow them to expand the use of computers across the nation – like a cyber chicken in every pot, right in your home!

But dammit there must be some way to delete this whole idea from that humongus, 2,000 page health bill.  There’s gotta be a way!

This is  just terrible.  Right Nail in the Head?