WASHINGTON – The $787 billion economic stimulus legislation includes $19 billion to modernize health-care information technology systems, a move that’s intended to lead to the computerization of all Americans’ medical records by 2014.

Is that $19 billion intended to create much-needed jobs and fix a health care system that’s choking on paper? Or is it a stealthy opening move toward national health care?

Many economists and health care experts say the plan is worthy of stimulus money because it will create tens of thousands of jobs in information technology, informatics (the managing and processing of data and information) and other computer-related industries, and will also lower health-care costs and improve efficiency by reducing medical paperwork.

However, Robert Moffit, the director of the Center for Health Policy at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, said the provision is nothing more than a Trojan horse for the Obama White House’s true aim – transforming the nation’s health-care policy with as little public debate as possible.

“He’s sticking big chunks of his health-care package into the stimulus plan,” Moffit said. “It’s a terrible way for a democratic republic to operate. None of these provisions have been subject to any kind of congressional consideration – no committee mark-up, no debate on the floor, just buried into the bill.”

Congressional Republicans and conservatives have seized on those criticisms to accuse the Obama administration of heading toward a European-style health-care system with rationed medical care. They spotlight both the health information technology provision and another $1.1 billion for comparative effectiveness research – studying which treatments work better than others – to argue their case.

Supporters of the health provisions wasted no time responding.

The American Medical Association said the provisions wouldn’t “create a federal system for electronically tracking patients’ medical treatments or for monitoring compliance with federal treatment standards.”

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Friday that the GOP complaints were simply political rhetoric. He said it’s “exceedingly similar to what we’ve heard for – going on the last two decades.”

“We have to move our health-care system into the 21st century,” Gibbs said. “If I was for saving small businesses money on their health care,” as Republicans claim to be, “I’d be for an increased investment in health care I.T.”

Not all Republicans are unhappy with the measures, either.

David Merritt, project director the Center for Health Transformation, a group founded by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., said the health technology provision is a job-creator and is needed to rescue the nation’s health care system.

“The Bush administration is the one that teed all this up, working on IT for five years, and he (Bush) mentioned it in the State of the Union address four times,” said Merritt, who edited the book “Paper Kills: Transforming Health and Healthcare with Information Technology.”

“The Obama administration is picking up where Bush left off,” Merritt said.