Patterico's Pontifications

7/21/2009

State Medical Associations Oppose ObamaCare

Filed under: Government,Obama — DRJ @ 12:57 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

The State Medical Associations of Texas, Georgia, and other states have broken with the AMA over Obama’s health care plan:

“A group of 17 state medical associations and three specialty physicians groups, led by the Medical Association of Georgia, have also balked at endorsing the legislation, and were drafting a letter last week to circulate on Capitol Hill, according to Congress Daily. Key among the concerns was the public insurance option.”

The Texas group has formed a task force to review the 1000+ page House bill and has already expressed concern about the bill’s “failure to fix Medicare funding formulas, the ‘long-term consequences’ of the government’s plan to offer a public insurance option and a prohibition on physician ownership of healthcare facilities.” The bill also reportedly omits caps on medical liability that have been included in Texas law since 2003.

On a related topic, Allen J. Favish notes the House bill establishes incentives for racial preferences at medical schools.

The Obama Administration may be trying to fast-track healthcare to avoid answering questions about provisions like these, or maybe they think the public just doesn’t care what the bill says. After all, Congress doesn’t read its bills anymore and even Obama admits he’s not sure what it says, even though that hasn’t stopped him from promising what it will do.

— DRJ

35 Responses to “State Medical Associations Oppose ObamaCare”

  1. I propose we do another poll for our readers: “At what point in the future do you think the rest of the population realizes that Obama is only capable of performing asspulls on every subject/reform he chooses to discuss/promote? What’s the over/under on this guy?

    Dmac (e6d1c2)

  2. DRJ, please forgive my snark, but I really am curious as to what everyone feels is the real tipping point for all of these ginormous spending bills. I’m thinking right after the Congressional recess, when the members have to go home and face their constituents, like it or not. The majority are going to come back chastened in most respects, regardless of their individual district’s political leanings.

    Dmac (e6d1c2)

  3. I encourage all Conservatives and Self-Interested Citizens to roll this with extreme prejudice and whip up as much animosity as possible about it.

    This bill is after-birth but the ObamaTards will not yield unless buried violently. What Fundamentalism is to the Taliban, health care is to ObamaTards.

    They are Luddites on this issue and it is a matter of “faith” to them.

    HeavenSent (641cde)

  4. As a Texas health care provider, I just have to wonder why, if we have lived without this bill for 230+ years, it is so damned urgent now?

    Fix Medicare then lets talk.

    GM Roper (85dcd7)

  5. I thought Axelrod said now was the time for Teh One to start leading. He could start by being honest about the cost and how it will be paid for. That would be a nice start.

    JD (e5521e)

  6. […] . . . are not on board with Stalinist health care. […]

    Bent Notes » Blog Archive » Seventeen state medical associations (66d836)

  7. JD – That would be a nice start.
    Although that reminds me of a lawyer joke, I’d say that a nice start would be resignation of Obama and Biden for ‘miserable failure’ and the immediate appointment of TOTUS as CIC, with Bo as VP.

    An improvement in honesty, transparency and character in the case of the first and an octupling of IQ in the case of the second.

    Apogee (e2dc9b)

  8. The AMA opposed it before it supported it.

    Kevin Murphy (805c5b)

  9. “After all, Congress doesn’t read its bills anymore and even Obama admits he’s not sure what it says, even though that hasn’t stopped him from promising what it will do.”

    Heh! Now that’s LEADERSHIP! Pass something, anything, please.

    daleyrocks (718861)

  10. Hey daley, you saw this, I hope:

    http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2009/07/21/obama_not_familiar_with_key_provision_in_health_care_bill.html

    Tell me again how smart this fellow is?

    Eric Blair (0b61b2)

  11. Eric – I saw it. He’s demanding passage of something, but he doesn’t know what, but he can swear up and down that it contains features based on what?

    Who keeps saying he is smart apart from the progs? It’s pretty clear why he hasn’t released his transcripts.

    daleyrocks (718861)

  12. The AMA has been, for a number of years-at least 20, concerned with the welfare of the Board of Trustees. I was a delegate from California back about 1986 or so. As a junior delegate, I was assigned to monitor the Finance Committee at the annual AMA meeting. Each committee is attended by a state delegate, maybe more, who then reports back to the state delegation on what has transpired, etc. I had been to the policy committees, which are pretty interesting but Finance is as dull as you would expect, hence the junior delegate assignment.

    It wasn’t that dull though as I was horrified to learn what the salaries were for the members of the Board of Trustees. There were about 20 members and you got down to about #12 before the salary got below $500,000. These guys are supposed to be practicing medicine and doing this part time. I could see a big salary from the Executive Director but these were not full-time jobs.

    Then, I attended a June meeting when Trustees are elected. The campaigning and parties rivaled the political conventions. It was pretty ugly and I thought I was cynical from California state politics.

    The next year, the AMA joined the Harvard School of Public Health to devise the new Medicare payment system that screwed the surgeons and I resigned. I haven’t been a member since. They are out to make money off the profession and if dues won’t do it (They are down to about 35% of MDs), they will sell their virtue to Obama.

    The state societies are also not completely clean, although Georgia’s has a good reputation, but they are a hell of a lot more realistic.

    All these big societies are lobbys and they will try to get what they can and sell what they have to. Most of it is stupid as it has been pointed out that the AMA got taken. They endorsed the bill for a promise to waive the physician pay cut (about 20%) that is scheduled every January and every January is suspended by Congress. It is part of a law passed 10 years ago that was supposed to control cost increase. Medicare payment is already well below private insurance. People are dropping out of the program, as I have described on my blog.

    Mike K (db3eb5)

  13. Mike K – Oh sure, next thing you’re going to tell us is that union leadership sells out it’s membership rank and file to cut personal deals as well.

    Apogee (e2dc9b)

  14. […] Patterico’s Pontifications:  What’s the Price of Tomorrow? Obama to flog his faltering takeover of healthcare State Medical Associations Oppose ObamaCare […]

    ~ Dear President Obama: Just Who Do You Think You Are, Gambling With My Grandchildren’s Future? « Quick Daily Hits — Politics and Such (f313e8)

  15. Why the hell would we read the bills? You guys know we’re just going to exempt ourselves from any legislation we pass. Constituents can be so naive.

    Typical Liberal Congressman (4fabb2)

  16. There is no gamble. The idea is to destroy the current insurance system with something that doesn’t work. Then, when everything is in shambles, they’ll come with single-payer.

    What part of “Obama is a Socialist” do people not understand?

    Kevin Murphy (0b2493)

  17. This place is going wacky. ohnoes. You moved the cemetery, but you left the bodies, didn’t you? You left the bodies and you only moved the head stones.

    You only moved the head stones!

    happyfeet (c75712)

  18. Apogee, if the AMA were a union and had done as much for its members as, say the teachers’ union, I wouldn’t be as annoyed. They are an incompetent union that pays its officers far more than they deserve. You may think the UAW killed GM but they did pretty well for their members for a long time. Maybe they should have had a long view but the AMA didn’t have that either.

    Mike K (db3eb5)

  19. Why is affirmative action in medical schools any more objectionable than any other sector of society? A society that isn’t color blind is a joke. Especially when it proclaims itself to be so and then divides its citizens into priviledged and peon castes.

    Thomas Jackson (8ffd46)

  20. Mike K,

    All the AMA wants to do is generate fees from ever larger CPT and ICD books.

    I agree the AMA is a disgrace. They sold out Doctors and on the cheap too.

    The fact they said A-OK to ObamaCare is really my last straw. No more dues here.

    HeavenSent (641cde)

  21. Anybody notice that DCSCA has been sorta scarce lately except for the Apollo and Cronkite threads, not that I’m complaining. Funny how that works, isn’t it.

    daleyrocks (718861)

  22. Looks like Obama is going to have to give the state medical associations a fat payoff like he did for the AMA to get them on board.

    Maybe he can allocate some of the $23.7 trillion that’s earmarked for TARP and its associated programs.

    Another Chris (a3bb8f)

  23. When they put private insurance out of business, won’t the voters be able to force minimum wage on the doctors and nurses?

    Will serve them right for ( most of them ) backing this communist bullshit.

    jcurtis (14bf32)

  24. and other states have broken with the AMA

    Well, hardly surprising since the president of that organization isn’t even honest enough to admit that, yep, he’s of the left. Reminds me of all those members of the MSM who say, “What?! Us!? No, we’re not liberal!” Or, “We’re not biased like our critics claim! They accuse us of being liberal when, in fact, we’re actually progressive!”

    AP:

    Dr. J. James Rohack, AMA’s president, told The Associated Press that the group’s endorsement [of the House Democrats’ healthcare bill] shouldn’t be seen as the AMA turning more liberal.

    “It’s not blue or red, or Democratic or Republican. This is something that is the AMA’s core values,” Rohack said. “The status quo that is 50 million Americans not having health insurance, a system that has administrative waste and as a result drives up premiums so that it is unaffordable for many patients — that is just not acceptable.”

    The AMA has long believed any health system reform can be achieved by revamping private health insurance plans. It fought the creation of Medicare and succeeded in delaying its debut decades ago. That was when it had more clout; its membership has dwindled to include barely one-fourth of the nation’s doctors.

    Mark (411533)

  25. There are more left wing doctors than ever before. The kids in medical school tend to favor single payer. They don’t understand the problems they are buying for themselves but that is nothing new. I remember when the CMA was considering a resolution to support the concept raised by the ex-wife of a friend of mine (now dead) that his ex-wife had an ownership interest in his medical degree. She wanted lifetime alimony based on his future earnings. It didn’t matter that he had supported her while she got her law degree. I found that the resolution was being pushed by female medical delegates, many of them still in training. I asked them if they were OK with ex-husbands having the same interest in their future earnings.

    Oops !

    Female solidarity took a sudden downturn.

    They don’t think ahead.

    Mike K (db3eb5)

  26. Years ago a woman came to my office for a consultation. She wanted me to sign a chapter 11 bankruptcy petition for her corporation – as the corporation could only be represented by an attorney (no representing yourself pro per). I stared down at the inch thick document. When I started to turn the page to start to read it – the woman gently reached across the desk, smoothed the page back down and politely said – “I want to hire you (she had offered $ 200 dollars) to sign it, NOT to read it.” Needless to say I immediately stood and said “You’re leaving – right now.”

    For some crazy reason, I remembered that incident while reading about Obama and the Dems efforts to get this healthcare bill passed before anyone could read and discuss it…..

    Californio (f32f25)

  27. The Democrat Party is a criminal enterprise.

    kazooskibum (a4dd38)

  28. “A society that isn’t color blind is a joke.”

    Really. So that MLK Jr “content of our character” line was just a comedy routine? Who knew?

    Travis Monitor (8d33ce)

  29. I have long suspected that the AMA has sold out the medical profession it supposedly represents like AARP sold out the elderly it purports to represent.

    They both provide a marginal service to a group that unwittingly provides the cover for a political agenda.

    vet66 (9d1bb3)

  30. It’s great that Ebola is meeting his Waterloo.

    Obviously, he’s used to squeezing by with no votes, few bills and plenty of wiggle room to pull a switch & bait when needed. The Acorn$ are blogging that we’ve had decades to discuss HC reform. If so, no one’s filled Obama in on the details.

    Susan Estrich even defected. Lefties jumping the ship here, there, everywhere. She, and they, seem to want control of personal medical decisions. While the Bomber is moving at rapid speed, it’s no surprise that he’s performing exactly as everyone feared. But progs just had to vote the incompetent radical into office before voicing their criticisms. Crazy.

    Vermont Neighbor (4126d0)

  31. #28

    I assume that you therefor desire a society that puts color ahead of the content of characters.

    Did you read my comment or did you fail to understand what you read?

    Thomas Jackson (8ffd46)

  32. Travis, I also don’t get what you’re saying. It is pathetic that our society/government still cares what race I am. Absolutely pathetic.

    MLK, a man who was a registered republican, did not say ‘content of character’ as some kind of racism euphemism, the way Sotomayor uses ‘wise’. MLK really was serious about a color blind society.

    Juan (bd4b30)

  33. […] Patterico’s Pontifications: State Medical Associations Oppose ObamaCare The State Medical Associations of Texas, Georgia, and other states have broken with the AMA over […]

    Latte Links (7/24) | Caffeinated Thoughts (84d4bb)

  34. We need the public option, we need SINGLE PAYER, and we need it NOW. You wingnuts are just tools of the insurance corporations. You are not patriots. You are not intelligent. You don’t think for yourselves. You are just tools.

    Dan Brown (4ee2bf)

  35. […] Patterico’s Pontifications: What’s the Price of Tomorrow? Obama to flog his faltering takeover of healthcare State Medical Associations Oppose ObamaCare […]

    ~ Dear President Obama: Who Do You Think You Are, Gambling Away My Grandchildren’s Future On Socialized Health Care? « Critical Political Thinking (eb9fec)


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