President Obama called for fixing the broken healthcare system by building upon investments made in electronic medical records in a town hall meeting held Wednesday.
The town hall was held at Northern Virginia Community College in Annandale, Va., where the president took questions the public submitted online regarding healthcare reform.
"I know that people say the costs of fixing our problems are great - and in some cases, they are," Obama said. "The costs of inaction, of not doing anything, are even greater. They're unacceptable. And that's why this town hall and this debate that we're having around healthcare is so important."
The president highlighted the continued use of electronic medical records as one way to help drive down costs.
"We already made those investments in the Recovery Act - because when everything is digitalized, all your records - your privacy is protected, but all your records on a digital form - that reduces medical errors. It means that nurses don't have to read the scrawl of doctors when they are trying to figure out what treatments to apply. That saves lives; that saves money; and it will still ensure privacy," the president said.
Obama said the government has already identified $950 billion over 10 years that will be used to pay for healthcare reform. He said this "doesn't even include the savings that we're going to get from prevention, or the savings that we're going to get from health IT - because in using congressional jargon, which I'm never supposed to do because nobody understands it - it's not scorable."
"And what that means is, is that the Congressional Budget Office can't identify exactly how much you would save - even though everybody believes that it will end up saving a lot of money, we can't put a hard number on it," Obama said.
The president ended his speech by calling for the American people to "stand up and say now is the time."
"We can create a healthcare system that gives you choice, allows you to keep your doctor, drives down costs, makes sure that every American doesn't have to worry if they lose or change their jobs. That's our aim. That's our goal. We're going to make it happen this year."
