Thursday, December 17, 2009

AMA Sell-out


The eminent J. (Josiah?) James Rohack MD has a post at KevinMD, updating us on the current stance of the AMA toward the health care reform bills swirling around Congress. Read it if you like. It's a very interesting piece, to say the least. He delineates several aspects of the bills that could stand a little improvement but fails to comment whatsoever on the absence of any significant tort reform measures in the proposed pieces of legislation. That's astounding. Ask any physician what needs to be fixed in American health care and tort reform will be somewhere in the top three. It's truly an amazingly contemptuous act of arrogance to write up something like this without even acknowledging the one aspect of reform that doctors universally would like to see enacted.

Any shred of credibility the AMA had as the "voice of American physicians" is now officially gone. JJ Rohack, thank you for making it crystal clear. Perfidious, ineffectual and tone deaf is no way to go through life as a physician lobbying organization, good sir.

4 comments:

tom said...

Good call out on the AMA-That "organized medicine" could have any official position on health care reform and remain silent on tort reform is a unbelievable.

An unintended (hopefully unintended) consequence of health reform may well be that the best and brightest no longer pursue a medical education AND the best and brightest currently working say " hey, I quit"

Are you following Docs4Patient Care web site commentary?

Anonymous said...

I feel on so many fronts this country has been taken over by corporatist/fascist thieves. The automotive industry, financial industry, and the healthcare industry are all being run by the oligarchs in bed with politicians. I feel we need to make the monsterous bureaucratic cesspool in Washington smaller. In my experience the smartest and most ethical people are in medicine. I would like to see more doctors like Ron and Rand Paul as voting options at the ballot box.
My resolution is to give less financial support to the big global corporations. Closing some of the military bases the US has in over 130 countries might save the country some money and allow real healthcare reform that doesn't bankrupt this country.
Attached is a good debate on healthcare with Bill Moyers.

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/12182009/watch.html

tom said...

No tort reform and looks like the 21% cut in Medicare fees remains in the plan. If true, doctors should plan for the following>
1. Less revenue
2. More expense
3. Declining autonomy
4. Continuation of government claim that doctors are the problem
5. Invest in pharmacy and insurance companies, they will be making tons of $$$$
6. Exit strategies from clinical medicine

Unknown said...

I am dropping my AMA membership because of all this nonsense and hope that others do the same.