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.”
Although Obama and the Democrats are trying to sweeten the deal by promising the payment schedule will be 10% higher then the medicare payments., its clear the doctors are not buying it. As for the issue of mal-practice insurance and tort reform there has been no word if Obama and the Dems will address the subject.
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