Dr. Robert Steinbrook broke down health care’s share of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act – also known as the stimulus package – in the New England Journal of Medicine. The article also features an itemized list of the health industry’s share of the stimulus.
Steinbrook said the act’s effects would be felt immediately, with some of the biggest winners being the National Institutes of Health and the movement for the adoption of health-related information technology.
“The spending includes $87 billion for Medicaid, $24.7 billion to subsidize private health insurance for people who lose or have lost their jobs, $19.2 billion for health information technology, and $10 billion for the National Institutes of Health (NIH).”
According to Steinbrook, “the economic crisis has allowed the Obama administration to undertake far-reaching health care initiatives that it could not otherwise have launched quickly, if at all.”
