Later On

Naturally enough: the AMA has systematically opposed all advances in healthcare reform. It’s not a good organization, and quite a few doctors have dropped out. The Center for American Progress:

The New York Times reports today that the American Medical Association (AMA), a 250,000-member physician group, is "letting Congress know that it will oppose the creation of a government-sponsored insurance plan," which President Obama supports. The AMA "has more influence than any other group in the health industry," in part because of" its "generous campaign donations"; the group has contributed nearly $10 million to federal candidates since 2000. Historically, the group, which has a "strong lobby operation," has opposed almost every major health care reform initiative, even coining the term "socialized medicine" to better attack proponents of reform. But as the Times reports, the AMA is "not the political behemoth it once was," with many doctors becoming "so fed up with the administrative hassles of private insurance that they are looking for alternatives." Obama is set to address the group next week, but White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs declined to say whether the President would discuss a public option in his speech. Instead, he said Obama would "outline the case for health care reform and make clear why we can’t afford to wait another year, or another administration, to bring down costs that are crushing families, businesses and government." As the Progress Report has argued, "A new public health insurance plan could restore competition into the consolidated health insurance market, lower health care premiums, lead the way in innovation, and improve health quality."

Sam Stein also has an article at Huffington Post:

Just days before President Barack Obama is set to address the American Medical Association to pitch its members on his vision for health care reform, the 250,000-member physician group announced it would oppose a major component of that effort.

On Wednesday night, the New York Times reported that AMA was "letting Congress know" that it would resist a public plan for health insurance coverage.

Politically, the revelation could be a potentially significant blow to progressive health care reform advocates, who contend that a public option is the best way to reduce costs and increase insurance coverage. AMA has the institutional resources and the prestige to impact debates in the halls of Congress.

Historically and philosophically, however, AMA’s opposition is hardly newsworthy. Despite a lofty reputation and purported commitment to universal coverage, AMA has fought almost every major effort at health care reform of the past 70 years. The group’s reputation on this matter is so notorious that historians pinpoint it with creating the ominous sounding phrase "socialized medicine" in the early decades of the 1900s.

"The AMA used it to mean any kind of proposal that involved an increased role for the government in the health care system," Jonathan Oberlander, a professor of health policy at the University of North Carolina, told NPR in a 2007 interview. "They also used it to mean things in the private system that they didn’t like. So, at one point, HMOs were a form of socialized medicine."

Indeed, the role played by AMA throughout health care reform battles past has often been primarily as the defender of the status quo. In 1935, …

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