How much would it cost Facebook to sign up 11 million people?

Dr. David Blumenthal, how much would it cost Facebook to sign up all 11 million Healthcare workers in America and let them use their very powerful architecture for healthcare delivery? How about then investing in third parties to build apps on top of this “Facebook for healthcare?”

I guarantee it’s nowhere near the $20 billion you want to handout to the industry stuck in 1986.

I think a couple of young developers could build a Facebook designed to power health.

Instead, the government would rather give an industry stuck in 1986 a hand out for life support so it can persist well into the next decade.

This is a perfect example of government fostering the ancient business models of the incumbents while sacrificing disruptive innovation for the greater good of the people.

Obama…you were re-elected in part due to your charisma. You were also re-elected due to the internet. You leveraged a 25 year old  Chris Hughes to build your online campaign. It worked. And now you’ve hired the antithesis of Chris Hughes, fostering the incumbents with their 1986 technology, to decide the fate of Health IT…and ultimately, how to deliver better, more cost-effective healthcare across our population. Because the current business models found within Health IT have only been able to reach 15-20% of healthcare, 80% of healthcare runs on handwritten notes. And, as Google says, if you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.

You see, the problem with Health IT is its business model. A Health IT company would sell a physician a computer system for $40,000 with a $10,000 a year “maintenance fee.” It will also charge a hospital system $100 million to create an entirely new wing of their company to outfit that hospital with an electronic medical record. I’m sorry, in today’s world, that’s absurd. Ask Chris Hughes. I’m sure he’d LOL.

Unfortunately, Obama and David, your decision to support 1986 technology is wrong. I will do everything I can to disrupt the companies you support. We’ve got the power of the internet behind us. I’m sure you understand that.