Lawmakers Make Stimulus Deal

The House version of the bill would have provided a 65% subsidy, and the Senate version would have provided a 50% subsidy. Neither version would have imposed an income limit on participants.

Employers and plan administrators could collect the subsidy by taking a credit against payroll taxes.

The conference report version of the bill also appears to provide $19 billion to fund a shift to electronic health records, with $17 billion for Medicare and Medicaid incentives and $2 billion for grants to the private sector. The health information technology allocation is down from $20 billion in the House version.

Starting in 2014, the conference report version would phase in payment penalties for Medicare physicians and hospitals not using electronic health records.

Bill authors are projecting a 90% electronic health record adoption rate for physicians and a 70% adoption rate for hospitals.

It was unclear at press time whether the final bill includes funding for research on comparative effectiveness of medical treatments.

The conference report version appears to include a provision that would create an Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology and a provision that would require that a patient be notified of any unauthorized disclosure or use of health information.