AMA: Time for a Boycot?
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.
Considering the amount of support among doctors for healthcare reform, it’s time to ask whether the AMA’s progressive members need to send a message and quit the group.
The AMA is a professional association with a quarter million member doctors. The AMA provides a seal of approval to the nation’s medical professionals, but over the years they have always opposed any government involvement in healthcare, whether it’s Medicare or, now, the public option.
In a way, it’s understandable. Most doctors get paid mostly through insurance coverage, and a public plan would almost certainly pay them less. At the same time, their insurance costs (malpractice insurance and other costs of doing business) are through the roof.
But the AMA taking this stand for its members makes no sense to anyone for whom logic is a factor. You see, the idea of the public option is to make health insurance more affordable to every American, who would then be covered and wouldn’t have to rely on emergency departments for routine medical care.
It would make sense for the health of the nation, not to mention for the bottom line of medical providers, to support a public option, as in the current configuration the uninsured are an explicit drain on the system. Making the change to a Medicare-style public option for all Americans just seems like the most intelligent thing we can do right now.
Will it lead to single payer? Only if the medical insurers don’t offer competitive plans. In a way, public medical insurance may be the most free-market idea in medical insurance ever.
Tags: ama, healthcare, insurance
RSS Feed
