Note to POTUS: Pointers on Speaking to American Medical Association
Memo
To: Barack Obama, POTUS
From: Howard Wolinsky, co-author of The Serpent on the Staff: The Unhealthy Politics of the American Medical Association
I hear that you're speaking Monday to the annual meeting of the American Medical Association's policy-setting House of Delegates in Chicago. It's a great idea to present your ideas to this forum, the so-called "legislature of medicine."
You'll be given a hearing amidst the pomp of this gathering of the leaders of medical politics, not necessarily medicine.
I thought I'd share some pointers having spent more than 20 years covering the AMA at the Chicago Sun-Times.
Here's some things to keep in mind:
- The AMA represents a minority of U.S. physicians. The AMA describes itself as America's largest doctor's organization. That's true on its face. But they claim to represent all doctors. Most docs are not members. The AMA's goal for the year 2000 was to have half of U.S. doctors inside its tent. It missed.
- The AMA historically was a racist organization.
- The AMA's policies historically encouraged racism and discouraged training of black physicians.
Just last year, the AMA belatedly apologized for its transgressions of favoring state's rights over the training of black doctors and standing silent as racism raged in this country.
Still, the AMA has bragging rights. It had a black president before the U.S. did. No doubt they'll have former AMA President Lonnie Bristow, who was inaugurated as AMA president in 1995, escort you. That's a photo-op in the making, maybe with a few black medical students.
Physician's Weekly reported how Joe Miller, the former No. 2 exec at the AMA, had been working as a well-paid AMA consultant as well as a lobbyist for then-apartheid South Africa. (Before 1990, AMA leaders often made trips to support doctors in that embattled land. An AMA CEO even praised South African medical care -- while in a hospital where patients were sleeping on the floor -- saying it was better than care back home at Cook County Hospital.)
Note to Rahm Emmanuel: U. of Pennsylvania biomedical ethicist Art Caplan wrote in his 1992 book, When Medicine Went Mad, how Nazi Germany used the AMA as a model for policies to remove Jews from the professions.
- Long in bed with tobacco interests.
Back in 1964, when the Surgeon General warned about the dangers of smoking, most major medical groups got on board to fight this modern plague. One exception: the AMA. The AMA instead accepted millions of dollars for a cover for the Tobacco Institute that for over a decade enabled the industry to say the issue was unsettled and being researched.
The AMA blew it many other times on tobacco. In 1981, the AMA was on the hot seat when it was disclosed that its Physician Retirement Fund owned tobacco shares. Anti-tobacco docs in 1985 revealed that the incoming AMA president owned a farm, with another AMA board member, on which tobacco was grown in 1985.
We're still waiting for an apology on tobacco.
- Masters of status quo.
The AMA is already on record as opposing your plan for government-sponsored health insurance for the tens of millions without health insurance.
You've been attacked for "socializing" banks and the auto industry. Get ready to be slammed for selling socialized medicine.
The AMA invented and popularized the term.
Morris Fishbein, voice of medicine as editor of the Journal of American Medical Association through the 1920s and the 1940s, was a wordsmith and sloganeer. He successfully tarred discussion of national health insurance with scare tactics, including calling any change in financing health care as "socialized medicine."
In 1962, in an effort to defeat the Medicare plan for the elderly, the AMA had its then President Ed Annis broadcast from an empty Madison Square Garden, soon after President Kennedy made a pitch there for Medicare. Great stagecraft and propaganda. The AMA opposed Medicare, but it ultimately lost the battle. Old people got much-deserved health coverage -- and, ironically, the plan made doctors rich.
Your proposal is hardly the most radical out there. You should present your plan. Listen politely. Don't yield. The health of the nation is at stake and shouldn't be left in the hands of medical politicians. Keep in mind that time is passing the AMA by.
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My husband is a physician and has long hated the AMA as a bunch of rich jerks. The answer to our healthcare problem is universal single payer healthcare provided by the government just like the rest of the industrialized countries. It works. Healthcare is a right not a privilege and we all win with a healthy population.
"AMA? You can have my answer now, if you like. My final offer is this: nothing."
The AMA is, and always has been, a greed based, far-right outfit. Time to let them continue to swirl down the drain into irrelevance, along with their masters in the GOP.
Excellent Points.....but the key point is: The AMA represents a minority of Doctors.... it is a 'club' that has no authority over Doctors. Speaking to them is a waste of time and effort.
"tsuh,"
As one of the 47 million Americans shut out of healthcare to better serve the insurance racketeers, your entire screed is a pathetically transparent list of insurance industry squawking points worthy of Rush Limbaugh or Michael Savage, devoid of fact or reason.
Want to guess why I am shut out of healthcare all together? Simple: I'm "not profitable enough" according to the nice Blue Shield/Blue Cross broker (off the record of course). I am self-employed, have degenerative arthritis, and a seronegative inflammatory condition.
G.B. Shaw stated so simply and concisely, "Capitalism has no place in medicine."
As one of the 47 million Americans kicked to the curb by the current corporate racket that passes for healthcare in this country, I couldn't agree with him more.
I also agree with President Thomas Jefferson regarding the corporations and their minions who currently make the decisions regarding the healthcare coverage of Americans:
"I hope we shall... crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country."
--Thomas Jefferson to George Logan, 1816.
Corporatism IMHO is just tyranny imposed upon We The People by other means.
Leland R. Erickson
Citizen
remember, a insurance madate will take the money from your pockets (twice) and put it in the pockets of hte insurance industry, the doctors, and the hospitals...just to name a few. They have gotten extremely wealthy off of us over the years, and instead of being grateful, they just want more. Maybe this is how parasites die out---by getting too greedy.
Fear mongering based on lies. Please stop the lying. Thank you.
My comment was for someone else. Not sure why it was posted as a response to your comment, but please forgive me.
Just wanted to add that I agree with you so thank you for your post.
ATTENTION: Chicago Single Payer Activists and Supporters-
President Barak Obama will be speaking at the AMA annual meeting sometime on Monday.
Single payer activists and supporters plan to use the occasion to demonstrate in favor of single-payer universal health care.
WHEN: Monday June 15, 11:00 am
WHERE: Tribune Tower, 435 North Michigan Avenue, near the American Gothic sculpture
The location is some distance from the hotel where the AMA meeting is being held to prevent demonstrators from having to deal with security problems.
Hope to see a large crowd!
So obama is going to cut the hell out of Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement to hospitals and providers by nearly 400 billion AND raise another 700 billion in taxes AND totally and completely wreck our current health care system…all so 15% of the population can have free health insurance. Sounds like a really great idea! Fk the other 85% …you’ll fall in line with socialized Obamacare when the government run crap outbids and thus drives private care out of the market entirely. Then EVERYONE will be equal and EVERYONE will have Obamacare! It’ll be so great. Shortages of providers, long long waiting lists, cuts in basic care, denials of basic care, preventative care, medicines, decisions on health care made by political favoritism and who the government deems of "worth" to society. Sounds like hell to me. Just hope the AMA stands up against President Obama's idea of an oppressive government taking over health care.
Fear mongering based on lies. Please stop the lying. Thank you.
"tsuh,"
As one of the 47 million Americans shut out of healthcare to better serve the insurance racketeers, your entire screed is a pathetically transparent list of insurance industry squawking points worthy of Rush Limbaugh or Michael Savage, devoid of fact or reason.
Want to guess why I am shut out of healthcare all together? Simple: I'm "not profitable enough" according to the nice Blue Shield/Blue Cross broker (off the record of course). I am self-employed, have degenerative arthritis, and a seronegative inflammatory condition.
G.B. Shaw stated so simply and concisely, "Capitalism has no place in medicine."
As one of the 47 million Americans kicked to the curb by the current corporate racket that passes for healthcare in this country, I couldn't agree with him more.
I also agree with President Thomas Jefferson regarding the corporations and their minions who currently make the decisions regarding the healthcare coverage of Americans:
"I hope we shall... crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country."
--Thomas Jefferson to George Logan, 1816.
Corporatism IMHO is just tyranny imposed upon We The People by other means.
Leland R. Erickson
Citizen
To add, while the AMA can hardly boast 50% representation of the current doctors of the US, there is an organization that can claim a higher number. The American Medical Student Association (AMSA), which split off of the AMA decades ago, represents well over 50% of all medical students in America, giving it a voice as an organization that can truly speak for the concerns of future doctors of America. This organization is strongly in favor of single payer/public health systems, and while lacking the funds that the AMA possesses, is active in lobbying on both state and national levels. I'd also point out that a number of other medical organizations, including Physicians for Social Responsibility, are also strongly in favor of public health, and boast sizeable memberships.
The AMA is the voice of the current medical establishment, but by no means is it the voice of medicine as a whole.
So obama is going to cut the hell out of Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement to hospitals and providers by nearly 400 billion AND raise another 700 billion in taxes AND totally and completely wreck our current health care system�all so 15% of the population can have free health insurance. Sounds like a really great idea! Fk the other 85% �you"ll fall in line with socialized Obamacare when the government run crap outbids and thus drives private care out of the market entirely. Then EVERYONE will be equal and EVERYONE will have Obamacare! It"ll be so great. Shortages of providers, long long waiting lists, cuts in basic care, denials of basic care, preventative care, medicines, decisions on health care made by political favoritism and who the government deems of "worth" to society. Sounds like hell to me. Just hope the AMA stands up against President Obama's idea of an oppressive government taking over health care.
you do realize you are a slave to a corporation?
Please stop spamming the same old lies. At least get some new material. Thank you.
Talking points from the Limbaugh/Hannity/Beck FAUX "news" school of liars. Congratulations on taking notes and getting so much misinformation in on your post though. They'll all be real proud of you and give you a pat on the head and a cookie for your efforts.
thanks for your facts howard. question about the recently proposed option for co-op health care. wouldnt it depend on who among the owners/shareholders were more about golden parachute-type profit than patient care? i can see them easily being in bed with ama ideals and finding ways to be no better than ama. public must be an option period.
Just offer Physicians money.
They've already shown what they are. Now we're just haggling over price.
Give them $2 more per patient visit. That should be a start.
Really, AMA is all talk and no actions; physician's want comprehensive healthcare reform!
Good Reporting. This is the kind of information people need to evaluate information from organizations that seem "legitimate" but are really supporting greedy self-interest of the few.
Public health care is kabuki. This is America, where politicians are bought and sold like shares of Phillip Morris. As long as Obama needs money to campaign, he will never have the interests of the public ahead of his interest in getting elected. As he has betrayed the LGBT community, so will he betray the uninsured.
The medical special interests are now doing the same thing that they did over 15 year ago with Hillarycare. Obama and his people have not learned that trying to bring everyone together and make everyone happy will never work with all of the big pockets in health care.
Hillarycare tried the same thing. All the big players were on board for the plan, insurance companies, big corporate plans, doctors, drug companies. Something funny seemed to happen the closer it got to being voted on in Congress. All the big players all of a sudden had problems, and decided they would jump ship, when they saw they could win a Congressional vote. Immediately, the medical special interests started pouring money to kill universal health care.
The medical special interests are all fair weather friends willing to jump on board when they think they have something to gain by being on board. As soon as they determine that they can kill the plan, they jump off board and become part of the opposition.
The same thing is going on today. The medical special interests are determined to either defeat the plan or we end up with a compromise plan that accomplishes little when it comes to reducing medical costs. That's why it's a waste of time to try to include the medical special interests. American's best interests are not their interests.
This is both eloquent and right on...and to the extent that Howard's connections with the AMA gave him more inside information that we are privy to, he's uniquely well-suited to make his arguments.
From Howard's lips to Obama's ears....
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