From PRI, Public Radio International and KCRW Santa Monica, this is To the Point.

Health care and information technology.

Hello again, I'm Marvin Alley, and this is To the Poet from Public Radio International.

A daily look at the issues Americans care about most.

It seems like a no-brainer

that information technology would help doctors cut costs and avoid medical errors by computerizing

their records. There's $19 billion of stimulus money to help doctors make the necessary

investments, but are the benefits worth the risks? Health IT is very expensive. It can cause errors and spread them to many patients

at once. It can also depersonalize the doctor-patient relationship, and even supporters concede

that privacy issues have not been resolved. We'll hear doctors disagree on a major element of the

president's health care reform. On reporter's notebook later on, the Iraq War, six years later.

First, here's the news.

Support for To the Point comes from subscribers of KCRW Santa Monica

and from the Public Radio International Program Fund,

whose contributors include the Ford Foundation and the John D. and Catherine T. McArthur Foundation.

Hello again, Warren-Aulney, back with To the Point. The Obama Recovery Plan contains $19 billion

to help American doctors computerize their records. Will information technology reduce the

costs of health care and the incident of medical error? Or will it make things worse? We'll hear

a debate today.

On reporter's notebook on the sixth anniversary of the war in Iraq, what's the outlook for American veterans?

First, this news update. Yesterday, the Federal Reserve announced plans to essentially print up a

trillion dollars in new money to buy treasury debt and mortgage-backed securities. Stock markets

...