American Medical Association Comes Out Against Nationalized Health Care

Proof • June 11, 2009

As one reader has already emailed, “It’s going to be tough for Obama to pass nationalized health care with the doctors against it.”

WASHINGTON — As the health care debate heats up, the American Medical Association is letting Congress know that it will oppose creation of a government-sponsored insurance plan, which President Obama and many other Democrats see as an essential element of legislation to remake the health care system.
The opposition, which comes as Mr. Obama prepares to address the powerful doctors’ group on Monday in Chicago, could be a major hurdle for advocates of a public insurance plan. The A.M.A., with about 250,000 members, is America’s largest physician organization.
While committed to the goal of affordable health insurance for all, the association had said in a general statement of principles that health services should be “provided through private markets, as they are currently.” It is now reacting, for the first time, to specific legislative proposals being drafted by Congress.

Though I have no love for the group, I agree with the AMA that health care should be provided through private markets. Of course, the AMA is also part of the problem with the existing health care system. By controlling the number students that can be admitted to accredited medical schools, and by promoting restrictive medical licensing requirements in the states, the AMA inflates doctor’s wages by controlling the supply of doctors.
If you’ve ever wondered why you only get about 5 minutes with your doctor when you go in for a visit and spend the rest of the time with nurses, the AMA’s control on the number of doctors in America is a big reason for it.
And, the AMA no doubt doesn’t want government health care because government health care would undermine the control the AMA has over the existing health care system.
All that being said, the AMA is a powerful opponent to Obama’s designs on nationalized health care. The future for nationalized health care in this country just got a whole lot dimmer, and that’s a good thing.

Tags: Asshats, Domestic Issues, Politics

http://www.valleydeals.com/cgi-bin/board2/YaBB.pl Kevin

Why would anyone want to work more for less money?
http://www.ski-blog.com/ sayanything-24

With the 1000′s of chiropractors, naturopaths, ayurvedic practitioners, accupuncturists, and other caregiviers, why should it be so hard to find help if all that other stuff was so effective.

Except that the AMA blocks the ability of these providers to prescribe medications and that completely limits the effectiveness of the treatment they can provide. The AMA and their lobbying arm also blocks PA’s and NP’s from providing family medicine or primary care at much lower costs by working independently. This leads to these lower cost providers having to work under doctors in a doctor’s clinic which prevents them from being able to provide services for a lower cost. The doctor bills the insurance the same amount whether it is for a PA or NP as they would for a doctor, with the doctor paying the PA a much lower salary and pocketing the markup.

Let PA’s, NP’s, Chiropractors, and maybe even psychologists have prescribing priviledges once they pass a state certification test and let these providers practice on their own and charge lower rates and you will get much more affordable healthcare. The AMA is against this and sites safety, but the reality is that these providers are probably better trained and safer than going to mexico for care that a lot of Americans including me do.
GregB999

If you’ve ever wondered why you only get about 5 minutes with your doctor when you go in for a visit and spend the rest of the time with nurses, the AMA’s control on the number of doctors in America is a big reason for it.

That’s why I like my doctor. I can usually spend as much time as I need with him. The clinic he is in residence at let’s you schedule either short office visits (15 minutes) or long office visits (30 minutes). My doctor will only do long office visits. It’s kind of nice as when there was something I knew I forgot once, we just talked about various things for a couple of minutes, including a few jokes, until I remembered what it was. I wouldn’t want to give up my doctor…
Spartacus

Chiropractors, naturopaths????? Why not try a witchdoctor or hell get some leeches too!

LMOA!
brain trust

Who could blame them? Once there is government money involved the pay czar will be setting maximum wages for what doctors can make. How many of you doctors out there now regret voting for our dictator?
robert108

Besides reducing the supply of doctors, the AMA also works to pass laws restricting the ability of non-doctors, such as the various types of nurses, to do certain types of work that they could easily (and less expensively) perform.

Exactly right, Brent! And even the AMA doesn’t like Bungler Obama’s totalitarian healthcare plan. Makes you wonder.
Guest
Amber

I don’t know much about the AMA but its got to be better than the government running anything and if they strive to get the best of the best out there then that’s what I’ll pay for. Otherwise if you want cheap healthcare go to another country and see what you’ll get. I have seen how the government runs things, they are pretty much going bancrupt themselves but yet expect us to believe they can pull off this nationalized healthcare program, what a joke. They did a really good job getting involved in the banks and the car companies right. (sarcasm) Seriously who doesn’t think that we the people can take care of ourselves, I think it’s good to have some governement regulations and laws but even then they don’t seem to be enforced so what’s the point of trying to control more. It’s about time people stand up and take action, that’s the only way things will change for the better, don’t leave it in the governments hands. You can find good doctors out there that will see you for more than five minutes just keep looking. One more thing I think the private insurance companies do the best to lower costs charged by doctors, they negotiate that for us, so putting them out of business won’t help the situation.
robert108

Rob, you’re right to oppose government health care AND the AMA sucks, but it’s not because they limit the # of med schools…

They write the requirements and regulations, and that determines who can have a program to train and certify doctors. It’s a monopoly.
rog

Chiropractors, naturopaths????? Why not try a witchdoctor or hell get some leeches too!
Buzz

Doctor thugs. Who would thought.
Doug

Rob, you’re right to oppose government health care AND the AMA sucks, but it’s not because they limit the # of med schools…who told you that? Having been an AMA member at local, state and national levels, I can tell you that there are no efforts to limit qualified providers…only that they stand up for quality, scientifially sound medical practice.

It’s the quality and the scientific part that is at a premium. With the 1000′s of chiropractors, naturopaths, ayurvedic practitioners, accupuncturists, and other caregiviers, why should it be so hard to find help if all that other stuff was so effective. It’s expensive and difficult to train the appropriate
people to be doctors. With all the regulations, lawsuits, government intervention, etc…why anyone wants to do it anyway?
The money is no better than any trained person or small business owner. Plumbers have it better.

Don’t blame doctors, AMA, or anyone or anything other than collectivism, socialism, communism, progressivism, and any other government directed healthcare. That’s the poison that makes healthcare a problem. That’s always the poison.
drphil

Yeah, no big surprise here, as universal care would cut down on doctor’s salaries. But I think you’re way off with your implied assumption that, if only more people got admitted to med school, there would be more doctors. Twelve to fourteen years of education and training is a major undertaking. Getting through ONE year of med school is too tough for many folks. Also, you’re not really arguing that doctor’s shouldn’t be well-paid, are you? I’m not sure that I want a guy cutting into me who’s worried about paying the mortgage.
Brent

Besides reducing the supply of doctors, the AMA also works to pass laws restricting the ability of non-doctors, such as the various types of nurses, to do certain types of work that they could easily (and less expensively) perform.
http://www.ski-blog.com/ sayanything-24

But I think you’re way off with your implied assumption that, if only more people got admitted to med school, there would be more doctors. Twelve to fourteen years of education and training is a major undertaking. Getting through ONE year of med school is too tough for many folks. Also, you’re not really arguing that doctor’s shouldn’t be well-paid, are you?

Not even close to arguing that doctors should not be well paid. Not minimizing the difficulties with getting through med school either. But the reality is that primary care roles are more or less equivalently filled by NP’s, PA’s, and possibly chiropractors or witchdoctors. We have multiple issues involved. First, the DEA and FDA control who can legally dispense prescriptions. Then the AMA controls who can see you without supervision.

There is just a tradeoff involved. You cannot have quality, affordable, safe, and available healthcare without massive costs. You have to sacrifice either quality, affordability, safety or availability. The market is such that there are just not enough providers competing in the marketplace to meet demand without either price based or availability based rationing. To bring prices down, there need to be more providers making less money or the existing providers need to see more patients to make the same amount of money. Neither of these options is palatable to doctors, however if barriers to entry are lowered for PA’s NP’s and new doctors, prices will come down, or at very least will grow at a slower rate.

I am not going to disparage a highly respected field like medicine or knock doctors for trying to limit the supply of competitors. I don’t like the Tort law that strips their profits down and spreads it out to plaintiffs attorneys. But by the same token, the AMA must encourage their membership to find ways to contain costs or price controls will be forced on them anyway. Tort reform and allowing non-physician providers more privileges is where I would start if I were in charge of things, but the Dems would rather nationalize things. Healthcare will come bundled in 50MPG two seat packages just like the only vehicles GM will soon sell.
navtechie

The slander the messenger, ignore the message propaganda started before this press release was even inked.

ie: The AMA is just a bunch of rich Pharma/Specialists who want to keep the gravy train going….

etc etc
http://sayanythingblog.com/readers/author/sparkiearbuckle sayanything-81

the AMA is an anti-market entity, as justin points out. rob finds convenient allies often, no? the american BAR assn is also an anti-market entity, and they, along with the AMA, should be slapped with anti-trust fines just like europe did to intel.
http://sayanythingblog.com robport

Besides reducing the supply of doctors, the AMA also works to pass laws restricting the ability of non-doctors, such as the various types of nurses, to do certain types of work that they could easily (and less expensively) perform.

Good point.

Like I said, I have no love for the AMA. But the status quo is at least better than Obama’s fix.
Awolrefuge

I thought the AMA supported Obamacare?

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