Rahm Emanuel on Technology Democratic Rep. (IL-5); Chief of Staff-Designee

Bring America's healthcare system into the 21st century

1. We can make sure the productivity revolution that transformed so much of the US economy over the past decade [via information technology] finally finds its way into the health care system.
2. We need to structure the health care system to reward results.
3. The health care system should help people stay healthy in the first place.
4. Effective care is the most cost-effective care.
5. We can save the most by doing a better job in the area where we spend the most: chronic care.

Chief information officer to digitize federal government.

Performance-Based Government
The strong anti-government sentiments of the early 1990s have subsided, but most Americans still think government is too bureaucratic, too centralized, and too inefficient.

In Washington and around the country, a second round of “reinventing government” initiatives should be launched to transform public agencies into performance-based organizations focused on bottom-line results. Many public services can be delivered on a competitive basis among public and private entities with accountability for results. Public-private partnerships should become the rule, not the exception, in delivering services. Civic and voluntary groups, including faith-based organizations, should play a larger role in addressing America’s social problems.

When the federal government provides grants to states and localities to perform public services, it should give the broadest possible administrative flexibility while demanding and rewarding specific results. Government information and services at every level should be thoroughly “digitized,” enabling citizens to conduct business with public agencies online.

Goals for 2010
• Require public agencies to measure results and publish information on performance.
• Consolidate narrow federal-state grants into broad performance-based grants that offer greater flexibility in return for greater accountability for results.
• Make it possible for citizens to conduct all business with government online.
• Create a chief information officer to drive the digitization of the federal government.

Create online database of science & math scholarships.

Directs the Secretary of Education to establish and maintain, on the public website of the Department of Education, a database of information on public and private programs of financial assistance for the study of postsecondary and graduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

Requires that such database:
1. provide separate information for each field of study;
2. be searchable by category and combinations of categories;
3. indicate programs targeted toward specific demographic groups;
4. provide searchers with program sponsor contact information and hyperlinks; and
5. include a recommendation that students and families carefully review application requirements and a disclaimer that scholarships presented in the database are not provided or endorsed by the Department or the federal government.