Don’t Let This Happen To Your Profession: AMA Culpable In Our Government Healthcare Fiasco

If you think Obamacare is bad for consumers and patients think about this: how would you like to spend between twelve and sixteen years of your life in grueling and expensive academic training, only to have politicians and bureaucrats dictating to you years later how you will practice your craft and how much money you’ll be allowed to earn?

Let’s be clear about medical doctors. Any individual who can genuinely earn the title “M.D.” is worthy of significant respect, and one would hope that an entire association of M.D.’s would be equally as worthy. Unfortunately the American Medical Association – the professional group that has purported to represent physicians in the U.S. for over a century - managed to foolishly get itself caught in the crossfire of the “Obamacare” war over the past few years. Now, MD’s – both those few who remain members of the AMA and the majority of physicians who are not members – as well as the practice of medicine itself, are all set to be big losers in the coming months and years.

According to their website, the association’s stated mission is “to promote the art and science of medicine for the betterment of the public health; to advance the interests of physicians and their patients; to promote public health; to lobby for legislation favorable to physicians and patients; and to raise money for medical education.” It is also noteworthy that the group originally opposed Medicare, the U.S. federal government’s program that provides healthcare reimbursements for elderly and disabled persons, fearing that “undue government intrusion” in the medical profession would damage the doctor-patient relationship and be detrimental to the profession itself.

But soon after Medicare’s beginnings in 1965, the A.M.A. changed their position. The association’s members and leadership both realized that government-funded health care through Medicare produced a steady stream of patients and more guaranteed reimbursements for services – in short Medicare in its early days guaranteed wages for MD’s. Thus for all of my lifetime, the A.M.A. has aggressively lobbied the U.S. Congress against cuts in Medicare funding as they have periodically been proposed.

Over the years the A.M.A. has also supported tight government limits on medical school entries – likely because doing so limited the “supply” of new M.D.’s, drove up the demand for existing MD’s, and thereby enhanced the wages of those who actually managed to get in to the profession. On this point the late Economist Milton Freidman once noted that the A.M.A. had become a “guild,” and was shielding its present-day members from the potential competition of future would-be Doctors.

Yet after decades of love and appreciation for the ways in which big government can shelter you from market competition and put money in your pocket, and with its membership dramatically in decline, the A.M.A. changed its public policy stance in mid-2009. After only a few months of President Obama in the White House, it was at that time that the association reverted back to being skeptical of government power, and publicly opposed President Obama’s healthcare “reforms”.

The federal government had at that point been exhibiting a years-long pattern of dictating to physicians how much they would be paid for specific procedures (rather than allowing doctors to set their own rates for services), and A.M.A. membership had begun to dwindle party as a result of this loss. The association thus surmised that Obamacare would give the government even more power to determine how much doctors could be paid, and told the President “no” regarding his early legislative efforts.

But months later the A.M.A. changed their minds again. Facing pressure from both the White House, and President Obama’s “Organizing for America” community organizer group, the A.M.A. hedged a bit back in 2010 and sheepishly agreed to Obama’s reforms “in principle.” This caused even more member physicians to leave the association, even as the President portrayed it as a “courageous” move.

But wait, there’s more! In June of 2012, less than four months before the presidential election, the A.M.A. changed its collective minds yet again, when the association’s President Dr. Peter Carmel announced their “official” renewed opposition to Obamacare. At the association’s annual summer convention, Carmel declared what many of us had been concerned about for quite some time; that placing more government bureaucrats and lawyers between a patient and a physician, Obamacare would make healthcare more expensive and less rewarding for all involved. Further, Carmel noted that President Obama’s law does not address the dwindling of Medicare reimbursements to M.D.’s, nor does it address the ever-escalating threat of medical malpractice lawsuits, a major source of healthcare cost increases.

And now here we are, a little more than a year after the A.M.A. “officially” decided that Obamcare was a bad deal, and we’re all experiencing the anguish of the federal take-over of the medical profession. The otherwise honorable and essential work of high educated physicians will be gradually replaced with less educated and less costly nurses and “P.A.’s” (physician’s assistants); existing physicians will have their reimbursement rates further reduced; veteran doctors are already leaving the profession or abandoning their small private practices to find a job at larger hospitals and corporately owned facilities; and some physicians are fighting to continue practicing their craft entirely apart from any involvement with insurance companies (check out the website Iwantdirectcare.com for evidence of healthcare without insurance).

President Thomas Jefferson once famously said that “a government big enough to give you everything you want, is a government big enough to take away everything that you have." The A.M.A.’s flirtation with the guarantee of patients via Medicare, and the present-day derailing of the medical profession via Obamacare, illustrates Jefferson’s wisdom quite vividly.

The A.M.A.’s foolishness demonstrates the destructive combination of being high trained in one’s profession, yet not comprehending the most basic facets of government, economics, and public policy.

You’re right, it was an amendment, here is the story:

National Right to Life?????????????????

BECAUSE OF NATIONAL RIGHT TO LIFE THIS MONSTROSITY BECAME THE LAW OF THE LAND, AND THEY ARE THE MOST RESPONSIBLE.

IF YOU DON’T WANT TO WADE THROUGH THE WHOLE THING JUST READ THE LAST TWO PARAGRAPHS:

Evil, or just Stupid?

October/November 2009 and ObamaCare was stalled in the House, the main sticking point being government funded abortions. There were enough Dems opposed to abortion that refused to vote for the ObamaCare if it contained any abortion language that it would not pass.

Representative Stupak (D) MI introduced his amendment that prohibited any government money from ObamaCare bill being used to fund abortions. This essentially would end all abortions, as no medical procedures outside the ObamaCare System can be done. No going to a doctor and paying him directly for anything. Thus, with his amendment, ALL abortions would be illegal.

This amendment to the House bill, if it passed, would give the above ‘Pro-Life’ Democrats a green light to vote for the ObamaCare bill.

Not enough Democrats supported the Stupak Amendment for it to pass. Many Democrats were vociferously opposed to it. It could only pass with Republican votes.

National Right to Life favored the Stupak Amendment, and insisted that Republicans vote for it. Further, they threatened any Republican who didn’t vote for it with their active opposition to that Republican during the 2010 fall election.

The Republicans caved, even those who could see the eventual outcome, right down to the last man. One hundred percent voted for the Stupak Amendment, along with a bunch of Dems who were opposed to abortions. Stupak handily passed.

Nobody believed the Amendment would stick; eventually it would/will be overridden in some fashion and Government funded abortion would become part of ObamaCare. Abortion is the Prime Sacrament of the Left, and will not be denied government funding, let alone be made illegal.

With a green light, the ’Pro-Life’ Dems could vote for ObamaCare, and although many hard-line Leftists were angry, enough of them also could see the end game, and agreed to vote pass ObamaCare.

A couple days later ObamaCare passed the House.

Everyone knew how this would play out, and it did. Rush spoke about it on his show.

I am of the opinion even National Right to Life knew it would play out this way. I’m not aware of anyone who thought otherwise. That leaves us with two opinions of their leadership;

The NRTL is Stupid Strategy;

1. They are so locked into their ‘stop abortion at all costs’ viewpoint that they can’t operate with a strategy that goes beyond 24 hours. Liberals like to say that ‘conservatives are stupid and easily lead’, this situation is circumstantial proof that Leftists are right from time to time. This is the NRTL Stupid Strategy.
OR

The NRTL is Evil Strategy;

2. They were in cahoots with the Pro-Abort crowd on this, and were complicit in getting ObamaCare passed in the House, ObamaCare which will include a monthly premium from all of us to fund abortions. This would be the NRTL Evil Strategy.

Either way, too stupid, or just evil, they are unfit to lead the movement to reduce or end abortions. Their thuggish actions have brought us to the brink of the enslavement of 300 million Americans, ending of the most advanced medical care in the entire history of the world, and will lead, ironically, to Chinese style government mandated and government funded abortions.

I am unaware of any other organization which has played such a pivotal role against Americans and babies in the ObamaCare fight as National Right to Life has.

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