Why is this man smiling?

As I flipped through the latest edition of Government Health IT News, I was confronted with the smiling face of Micky Tripathi smack in the middle of page 7, surrounded by the text of the article Experts see need for federal financing of NHIN. "Did Micky suddenly quit his job as CEO of the Massachusetts eHealth Collaborative to become a columnist?" was my first thought.I read through the article, looking for anything to do with Micky. Finally I found it in the last paragraph:

[Tripathi] said adoption of electronic medical records is proceeding too slowly to engender optimism about readiness to use the NHIN. "The only business case for a national network is for the federal government to create and sustain it," Tripathi said.

As usual, he makes a good deal of sense. Local health information exchanges, which are actually useful for doctors and patients, are having a hard enough time developing a business model. What would make anyone think a national network is viable on its own?You can read the article online here, but you won't be able to see Micky.