Obamacare changes the health care system in several ways that harm physicians. It also fails to address the pivotal issues facing physicians today—for example, low government reimbursement rates that fail to cover the cost of care, or the need for state-by-state medical malpractice reform. It should have come as a surprise, then, that during the health care reform debate, the American Medical Association (AMA) emerged as one of the new law’s supporters. But rather than symbolizing physicians’ support for the left’s health care overhaul, the AMA’s stance on Obamacare just …
The American Medical Association lost 5 percent of its membership last year as the physician group faced fallout from its endorsement of Obamacare and refusal to retreat from the law’s most controversial provisions. As physicians and medical school students back away from the well-known organization, they’re turning to upstarts like Docs4PatientCare and the Benjamin Rush Society, two alternatives to the AMA. Docs4PatientCare maintains contact with about 4,000 physicians who are primarily concerned about preserving the doctor-patient relationship. Many of them became active after the AMA’s endorsement of Obamacare in 2009. …
A new study concludes that abstinence-only education had a significant and long-term effect in reducing teen sexual activity. “The abstinence-only intervention reduced sexual initiation,” reports the study, which is featured in the most recent issue of the medical journal Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, published by the American Medical Association. The study found that a short eight-hour abstinence program reduced sexual activity among youth by a third. Despite the brevity of the abstinence training the effects lasted a full two years after students left the classroom. Moreover, if students …
So why don’t President Barack Obama and Speaker Nancy Pelosi want to allow CSPAN to televise the final health care negotiations? Why is White House press secretary Robert Gibbs evading questions about transparency in the final crafting of the bill? Just what deals are being made to secure the votes necessary to pass a plan that vast majorities of the American public are against? It appears that medical groups supporting Obamacare could come away with healthy bottom lines. Dr. Erik Dahl blasted the American Medical Association’s recent support of the …
Yesterday the American Medical Association announced their support for the Senate version of Obamacare. Which is interesting since both the House and Senate versions of Obamacare cut doctor Medicare reimbursement rates by 20% starting in 2011. If Obamacare were to reinstate these cuts, the plan would add $196 billion to the deficit in the first 10 years and $765 billion in the second decade. But President Barack Obama promised the American people yesterday: “I just want to be clear, for all those who are continually carping about how this is …
The Mayo Clinic, the American Medical Association, the American Hospital Association and the Federation of American Hospitals have all come out strongly against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) Medicare buy-in plan for Americans aged 55 to 64. Every one of these core health care providers recognizes that expanding an already unsustainable program would mean disaster for the American health care system. The left in Congress sees it differently. Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-CA)tells the Los Angeles Times: Expanding Medicare is an unvarnished, complete victory for people like me. It’s the …
The Washington Post reports today: The nation’s preeminent seniors group, AARP, has put the weight of its 40 million members behind health-care reform, saying many of the proposals will lower costs and increase the quality of care for older Americans. But not advertised in this lobbying campaign have been the group’s substantial earnings from insurance royalties and the potential benefits that could come its way from many of the reform proposals. The group and its subsidiaries collected more than $650 million in royalties and other fees last year from the …
While some prominent physician groups at the national level like the American Medical Association have suggested that the typical doctor on net would be better off if Congress’s health care legislation were to pass—mainly because of all the changes in Medicare payment methodology—those groups have generally failed to acknowledge a number of the critical issues. Based on the provisions of the House health care bill (H.R. 3200), here are the simple facts: • As millions of Americans are moved from private insurance to public coverage, with the introduction of a …
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvHPTq3L4Y4[/youtube] David Goldhill is President and CEO of the Game Show Network and has run numerous businesses during his career. When his father died of a hospital-borne infection two years ago he began researching the entire U.S. health care system, analyzing it with the keen eye of a businessman. What he learned is that intermediaries like insurance companies, Medicare and Medicaid distort a system that is supposed to provide health care to individuals into one that serves faceless and, largely, uncaring bureaucracies. Case in point: 100,000 people die every year in America …
According to AMA’s National Health Insurance Report Card, Medicare denies 6.85 percent of its claims, higher than any private insurer (Aetna was second, denying 6.80 percent of its claims), and more than double any private insurer’s average. What’s fascinating is that The American Medical Association (AMA) has endorsed a public option, despite the fact that “some member physicians at the group’s annual meeting [in June] likened the notion to communism.” The Obama administration repeats ad nauseum that we need a government option to “keep insurance companies honest” and to make sure they …
