Health Care Obamanomics

Until now, the administration hasn't zeroed in on health care as a means of boosting the economy. But it could be another argument made to sell the president's $1 trillion overhaul of the system. While Obama talked yesterday about the moral obligation of fixing the system, Vice President Joe Biden took a page out of Bill Clinton's 1992 playbook at a stop in Chicago today.

Remember "it's the economy stupid?" Well, Biden referenced the economy quite a bit as he announced a $1.2 billion government grant to help hospitals use electronic medical records.

In addition to there being a "moral imperative" to overhaul the health care system, there is an "economic imperative," the vice president told a group of health care professionals at a round-table discussion he held.

After giving a spirited, unsolicited defense of President Obama's economic recovery plan, Biden repeatedly made reference to the benefits of reform to the health care system and to the overall economy. An outdated record-keeping system is an example of ways to take costs out of the system, he said.Obama's health care reform will save "taxpayers tens of millions of dollars over time," he insisted.

Biden led the roundtable with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius at Mount Sinai, a West Side Chicago hospital that serves the poor. The event was pretty well scripted and Biden didn't talk to the media afterward.

Near the end of the discussion at Mount Sinai, the vice president asked the panelists to talk about how reform could save money for the system.

Steven Whitman, who heads the Sinai Urban Health Institute in Chicago, cited a local program in which health care workers advise families on preventing asthma in children. One worker devoted to this type of preventative health care can save the system more than $250,000 a year, he said.