Refactored Day 2

What a difference 30 minutes makes. Yesterday I left Walnut Creek at 6 a.m. and got to the Refactored Conference in an hour and five minutes. Today I didn't get off until 6:30 and it took an hour and 35 minutes.

Heard about this dustup the other day, and there's a news update this morning.

WASHINGTON (Reuters, David Morgan) - An Obama administration effort to raise private donations to help implement President Barack Obama's healthcare reform law came under fire on Monday from congressional Republicans who claim the action could violate the law.

As the Republican-controlled House of Representatives prepared to mount a new vote this week to try to repeal the law, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton asked the administration to identify the companies and organizations that have received fundraising calls from Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

The committee also sent letters to nearly a dozen healthcare companies asking if they have received solicitations from Sebelius. The list includes insurers Aetna Inc, Cigna Corp., Coventry Health Care Inc, Humana Inc, UnitedHealth Group Inc and WellPoint.

Meanwhile, Republican Senator Lamar Alexander called on Sebelius to end the fundraising, saying her actions could violate Congress' power to direct policy through appropriations...

Interesting question. Anti-ObamaCare obstructionist Republicans vow to throw tactical sand in the PPACA gears at every turn, given that they will never get the votes to repeal it outright (Rep Cantor's tiresome iterative posturing notwithstanding). By refusing to approve appropriations for the upcoming HIX deployment, they hope to help make the ACA health insurance exchanges the Cluster[bleep] they want it to be.

We shall see.

UPDATE

Uh, OK... Taking time out from her breathless warnings about the New Soviet Menace, I see. Her latest is that Obama is going to use the IRS to deny health care to Conservatives and "kill" them.

Is this a great country or what?

UPDATE2: Bachmann will have a cow...

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Off to witness far more interesting and value-adding stuff at Health 2.0 Refactored Day 2. to wit...

L to R: Adrian Gropper, Patient Privacy Rights, Arien Malec, RelayHealth, and The Bolty Boy

Health 2.0's Jess Goldband

Fred Trotter (center) and Laura Herzog (right) presented a searing session.

Fred Trotter is a Health Hack Badass. I've reviewed his work before.

Karen Herzog

Ryan Panchadsaram, White House Special Advisor. Another brilliant youngster.

Jess Jacobs, FDA

Karen Herzog

I am way behind in posting captions and narrative updates. They will probably have to await my returning from HIMSS California State HIT Day in Sacramento tomorrow. I have copious notes.

Didn't help that I spent five hours total today in heavy Bay Area commuter traffic.
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UI, UX, and U

Mike Cuesta, CareCloud

Sean Mehra, HealthTAP

Mike Cuesta moderated the Day 2 UI, UX, and U: Designing for Health session. Sean Mehra dazzled me fairly well with his eloquent HealthTAP presentation, which went through their design and coding proess for their product, written principally to agnostically accomodate iPhones, iPads, and Android product platforms (in addition to desktop web browsers) using combined HTML5 + JavaScript + CSS coding tools.

These kids are all really smart and into it.
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More to come...