The American Medical Assosiation has come out against a government sponsored health plan. I guess when lives, and you’re livelihood, are on the line you have to step up.
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.
The opposition, which comes as Mr. Obama prepares to address the powerful doctors’ group on Monday in Chicago, could be a major hurdle for advocates of a public insurance plan. The A.M.A., with about 250,000 members, is America’s largest physician organization.
While committed to the goal of affordable health insurance for all, the association had said in a general statement of principles that health services should be “provided through private markets, as they are currently.” It is now reacting, for the first time, to specific legislative proposals being drafted by Congress.
In the presidential campaign last year and in a letter to Congress last week, Mr. Obama called for a new “public health insurance option,” which he said would compete with private insurers and keep them honest.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said Wednesday that she supported that goal. “A bill will not come out of the House without a public option,” she said Wednesday on MSNBC.
But in comments submitted to the Senate Finance Committee, the American Medical Association said: “The A.M.A. does not believe that creating a public health insurance option for non-disabled individuals under age 65 is the best way to expand health insurance coverage and lower costs. The introduction of a new public plan threatens to restrict patient choice by driving out private insurers, which currently provide coverage for nearly 70 percent of Americans.”
Who do you trust more? A bunch of bureaucrats in Washington, or the people who can truly save your life?
Sadly, through medicare and medicaid the U.S government already controls almost 50% of medical spending. My contention is we have to some extent brought this (nationalized healthcare) on ourselves by isolating ourselves from the true cost of healthcare via co-pays etc. I think further that we have enabled much of this through an over-reliance on ‘traditional medicine’, a drug for every conceivable ailment when simple things like walking, excercising, yoga…. would cut down on so many needless expenditures. Nonetheless, we have lost the battle already on this front, and the government is fully engaged in its mission to dictate how you live every aspect of your life. I am glad the AMA is opposed to nationalized healthcare, but they also thumb their nose at alternative care options and as such, I think they are part of the problem.
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