Closing HIMSS 2013 with Karl Rove and James Carville

At the closing session at the 2013 HIMSS conference, with James Carville and Karl Rove, they had a feisty debate on sequestration, immigration, politics, and healthcare reform; however, there was not mention of health IT. It started with some friendly banter and then quickly moved into some more heated discussion, particularly around lowering healthcare costs. Rove called the ACA a "gigantic disaster, financially." Carville supported the Obama administrations health reform efforts. I wish they had taken the debate to health IT, because I believe they may have found some common ground there.

I had a chance to have a quick conversation with Mr. Rove about the transforming power of health IT and his support for standards and interoperability:



I'll be writing much more about the conference, and especially the Healthcare Transformation Project, after I've had a chance to catch up on some sleep...