News Release

Statement by Mike Leavitt, Secretary of Health and Human Services
Regarding the Health Information Technology Bills of Senators Enzi, Kennedy, Baucus, and Grassley

American businesses and families are clamoring for lower health care costs. Health care expenditures currently comprise approximately 15 percent of our gross domestic product (GDP), and, within a decade, could reach as high as 19 percent of GDP. We cannot sustain health care taking an ever bigger bite out of our paychecks every year.

And it's not just our pocketbooks -- it's our lives. Medical errors kill 44,000 to 98,000 Americans every year in hospitals. Every day that we delay, more lives are lost.

Our nation has an economic and a humanitarian imperative to transform health care as we know it. A critical ingredient in this transformation is our efforts to meet President Bush's national goal for most Americans to have electronic health records within ten years. Electronic health records will lower costs, improve quality and reduce medical errors.

Earlier this month, I announced the American Health Information Community, a public-private advisory committee that will recommend specific actions that will accelerate the adoption of health information technology. The community provides a collaborative forum for interests in and outside the federal government to help us meet the national goal for health IT standards and interoperability. I welcome the interest of Senators Mike Enzi, Ted Kennedy, Max Baucus and Chuck Grassley, who are introducing bills on this topic, and I look forward to working with them as we work to make electronic health records a reality.