Is the AMA trying to gag docs?
This is more than a bit curious. Last month, the AMA issued a statement that at least one doctor, Hal Scherz, believes is intended to “suggest” to doctors that perhaps they either shouldn’t speak with their patients about Obamacare, or, shouldn’t tell them the truth. Here is what the AMA had to say,
[P]hysicians might reflect on how to properly balance their obligations as members of the medical profession with their rights as individual citizens who will be affected by reform. In particular, physicians may wonder whether it is appropriate to express political views to patients or their families.
Huh…is it appropriate to express political views? Since when is explaining what the newly passed health care bill will mean to a patient the expression of a “political view”? Is it a “political view” to say that Medicare will face cuts of $500 billion, or, to tell a patient that he or she will be required to have insurance approved by the government, or pay a tax? Is it a “political view” to explain that there will be a new tax on prescription drugs, insurance companies and medical device manufacturers?
Beyond that, even if a doctor desires to express a “political view” by what right does the AMA have to “advise”,
physicians should conduct political communications with sensitivity to patients’ vulnerability and desire for privacy.
Of course, the more doctors explain the bill, the more patients dislike it, causing patients to question why the AMA supported the bill in the first place. This is an easy question to answer.
The [AMA] wants to protect a monopoly that the federal government has created for it—a medical coding system administered by the AMA that every health-care professional and hospital must use if they wish to get paid for the services they provide. This monopoly generates income of $70 million to $100 million annually for the AMA.
Support the bill, you keep your monopoly. Don’t support the bill, well, who knows.
The more we learn about Obamacare, and the “incentives” needed to obtain support for it, the more the American public dislikes it. And, apparently, the pressure to continue to support Obamacare is still being exerted, at least by the AMA.
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The site is not broken.
The AMA makes me want to gag, at minimum.
Is it "professional" to politically roll over for a president and a party, either under duress or bribery, subverting the presumed role they are supposed to play as representatives of their membership, and subsequently putting their own best interests ahead of those members? Maybe they should put in a call to the AARP. Or maybe they did, considering that both would have to be in collusion to let something like that huge cut in Medicare funding pass. Clearly, both groups are sellouts, and should be ashamed of themselves, which they would be, if they were truly professionals.
I can tell you that my personal doctor, who operates a walk in clinic serving thousands of patients, had no trouble relating his opinion of NØbamacare to me, putting several unprecedented f-bombs ahead of descriptions of the young, corrupt president.
I hope the AMA and the AARP, among others, is keenly aware that we are watching, and their actions are adding members to the Tea Party every minute of every day.
I mean "ARE keenly aware." I hate when I do that! 😉
I sent an email to the AMA a few weeks ago when I saw a message in my email eluding to the AMA needing help because of the decrease in Medicare payments. They asked to write or call our state representatives.
I asked them where they were when Obutthead Care was being discussed before they shoved it up our noses? I told them they had the power and the numbers to have done something about it then. Why were they silent? Now they want help?
I am disgusted with their lack of response to this issue. I am an RN. I know how Doctor's can be and I told them I was shocked that they didn't speak out when they could have. They are out-spoken and totally in control people. It is not like them to have let all this all come down on their heads without a fight.
Of course I never heard from them but I'm really curious about the whole silence thing. It makes no sense to me. Why would they have let this lousy health care bill get voted in without a fight?