Space-age medicine, stone-age government: how Medicare reimbursement of telemedicine services is depriving the elderly of quality medical treatment.

We have the technology. What is needed is government financial commitment, so argues Kristen Jakobsen in the following discussion of "telemedicine." The term refers to the delivery of health care services by means of modern telecommunications technology. According to Ms. Jakobsen, the telephone, the fax machine, the Internet, and interactive audio-visual transmissions hold the key to making medical care more accessible and less expensive. Potential beneficiaries include vast populations of elderly in rural areas, who tend to be remote from upscale health care facilities and in need of the wherewithal to reach them. Standing in the way, in Ms. Jakobsen's view, is a government which lacks the boldness and the vision to lay an adequate fiscal foundation for this promising possibility.