A.M.A Opposes Public Health Insurance Plan

A significant development if not wholly surprising. A public plan would strain the finances of doctors and likely create more doctor shortages.

June 5 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. can insure all its citizens and rein in rising medical bills without a new government- chartered health plan, the head of the nation’s largest doctors’ group said.

The American Medical Association thinks the health system can be fixed through changing private insurance, and it’s worried a government alternative would end up underpaying doctors the way Medicare and Medicaid do, Nancy Nielsen, the group’s president, said in an interview in San Diego today.

President Barack Obama said this week he “strongly” supports a government-sponsored alternative to compete with private insurers. That proposal met resistance this week from Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee, which is drafting legislation, and a group of 51 House Democrats who often side with Republicans.

We have emerging two very different ideas about what health care legislation will look like. A more "centrist" proposal that would shy away from creating a vast new entitlement program, but adopt many of Obama's proposals but and would likely mandate coverage. And a more liberal proposal whose centerpiece would be a national health insurance for those who would qualify. On a side note this is the second article where I have come across the fallacy that health industry and Obama are going to save 2 trillion:

The medical association, based in Chicago, is one of six groups that pledged May 11 at the White House to help save the U.S. economy $2 trillion in health-care costs over a decade. The doctors said in a letter to Obama they could curb unncessary medical procedures. The AMA urged that physicians be shielded from malpractice lawsuits if they followed “best practice guidelines.”

The other article was Karen Tumulty of Time Magazine:

And yet there are signals coming from Capitol Hill back rooms and corporate boardrooms that suggest things could be different this time. In recent weeks, health-care-industry leaders have pledged to cut their own costs by $2 trillion over the next 10 years (though they have yet to fill in the specifics).

What actually happened:

“These groups are voluntarily coming together to make an unprecedented commitment,” Mr. Obama said. “Over the next 10 years, from 2010 to 2019, they are pledging to cut the rate of growth of national health care spending by 1.5 percentage points each year — an amount that’s equal to over $2 trillion.”

Health care leaders who attended the meeting have a different interpretation. They say they agreed to slow health spending in a more gradual way and did not pledge specific year-by-year cuts. "There’s been a lot of misunderstanding that has caused a lot of consternation among our members,” said Richard J. Umbdenstock, the president of the American Hospital Association. “I’ve spent the better part of the last three days trying to deal with it.”

This is when Obama official Nancy-Ann DeParle, said the President had mis-spoke about the two trillion, only to quickly retract the statement an hour later.