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June 12, 2009
Doctors’ Group Opposes Public Insurance Plan
Doctors’ Group Opposes Public Insurance Plan
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.
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.”
If private insurers are pushed out of the market, the group said, “the corresponding surge in public plan participation would likely lead to an explosion of costs that would need to be absorbed by taxpayers.”
If the doctors are too aggressive in fighting the public plan, they risk alienating Democrats whose support they need for legislation to increase their Medicare fees.
Wild Thing's comment........
God bless the AMA for speaking out it can't be easy for them when they have to play so many games with politics too and I bet they hate that part of it. I know my doctor has mentioned a couple of times about trying very hard never to over book so he can give each patient the time they need.
From Rush:
The bottom line, he's already set up a socialized medicine health care board in the Porkulus bill modeled after the UK, which he admitted is a socialist system, socialized medicine, there's no other way to describe what the man wants to do than to call it socialized medicine. Single payer socialized medicine. And it's all about control. It's not about cost. This man's not worried about the cost of anything. He doesn't care what anything costs. A trip to New York for a date, $12 trillion in debt over ten years, he doesn't care what things cost. That's just to make you think he does. He doesn't care what health care costs. In strict financial terms we don't have the money as a country to be buying anything. We don't have the money. Do you realize we only have the money because the Chinese buy our bonds? But we don't have the money. We are spending so far beyond our income. He doesn't care about that.
If the AMA get too aggressive here, they risk angering Democrats who already control their income via Medicare. This is political health care at play here. "If the doctors are too aggressive in fighting the public plan, they risk alienating Democrats whose support they need for legislation to increase their Medicare fees."
The AMA, as I said at the opening of this program, we're now being trained, we're now being told to hate the doctors and to hate the insurance companies. This is an administration and liberalism that fosters and promotes hate to get what it wants. You watch, the AMA, they're on the front page of the New York Times, "We don't like what Obama is going to do." You watch how they're going to be characterized in the next couple days. They're going to be characterized as a special interest group only out for themselves, and they're going to pit the AMA -- doctors -- against all of you for the express purpose of getting you to hate the doctors, to put pressure on the doctors to buckle and accept Obama's plan. That's how this is going to happen.
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....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at June 12, 2009 07:50 AM
Comments
I'm here so let me comment on this, too.
The insurance is too high: there aren't enough doctors. These things can be FIXED. We do NOT need a whole new system that we will be REQUIRED to pay for. I am extremely ANGRY. This is a MUGGING. I do not use many doctors and I treat myself and I do NOT want to purchase any insurance. But even if I did want insurance, this would be a violation of my personal liberty. Call/Fax/Go to DC Say No.
Posted by: ava at June 12, 2009 12:04 PM
I hate that Obama is going to try to turn physcians and the public against each other. Most doctors are very decent people driven to do good for others.
Divide and conquer. One of Obama's methods of ruling. Doctors serve. The President is also supposed to serve, but this one rules.
Posted by: TomR at June 12, 2009 12:45 PM
Boy o boy, I've never seen nurses look that good. No more Caps no more Whites, and no more dirty knees. That use to be the way you could tell who the head nurse was.
But all joking aside, the Nursing profession has been dumbed down and regulated. There is no head Nurse any more there is a charge nurse, who has responsibility to her floor, she can't discipline and employee or even make any suggestions. Everybody wear's just about what they want. Brightly colored uniforms, it's hard to tell the nurse for the Aid unless you get to read their badge. Now they are hiring more LPNs who are not allowed to give meds in Pa, and less RN's who are. Last nite My wife had 8 patients, how can she take care of 8 patients, that's impossible, if she has to help an LPN, she has an extra 2-3 patients because if they need meds they have to drop what they are doing and go with the LPN. The horrors stories only get worse. My wife is in charge of the rapid response team for the whole hospital. When they call a code she has to respond no matter what she is doing at the time, and everybody has to help with her patients... Yeah right. Make sure everybody is coming to the code, then the Doctors, the Interns, the Residenants, and at her Hospital, they have, believe it or not, 'Fellows', Fellows are Residants who have completed their residency but have not chosen a specialty. At any one code, there may be 10-12 doctors there all standing around.
This is before OBAMACARE. Can you imagine the Chaos if any form of National Health Care gets shoved down our throats.
I told my wife some nite should wear one of her old Starched White Uniforms and Cap...She said, she probably wouldn't be allowed in the Hospital. No body would recognize the uniform.
This is Normal Hospital care.
Posted by: Mark at June 12, 2009 12:56 PM
Single payer plans have been tried in a number of countries at this point, over several decades. There is several centuries’ worth of well document empirical evidence on how they work. In every case the medical progress in the country slowed to a much slower pace than the world average, where it did not stop or even reverse.
Empirical evidence includes the breast cancer survival rates under the British National Health Service compared to survival rates in the United States and other countries without single payer systems. The lack of progress in health for incresed civil service costs is another peice of the puzle. The evidence is overwhelming that single payer systems do not work and adoption of such a system is contrary to "the "general welfare." Since the constitution authorizes Congress only to promote the general welfare a single payer system is de facto unconstitutional.
The American people have come to expect that the Federal Courts will routinely ignore the U.S. Constitution but it might be a good idea to beat the drum to draw attention to that fact that single payer healthcare is unconstitutional. It takes Orwellian levels of willful self-delusion in the face of current evidence to promote a single payer health system for the United States. You have to believe that the American civil service can make something work that no civil service has made work in twenty odd countries. Truth is that most people promoting single payer systems want to siphon off money from health care for political patronage and to enrich their cronies.
Posted by: Avitar at June 12, 2009 01:33 PM
My wife was given 6 months without treatment for her cancer. 2 years with the treatment. She had the surgery and chemo. 19 years later, she's still kicking my ass. Under Obamacare, I would have been a widower 19 years ago. Folks, I don't know how we're going to turn this country around. If Obama can do as he pleases with no legal ramifications, we're sunk. I'm hearing so much about one thing or another being unconstitutional. But where are the lawsuits? I'm having a hard time understanding how such drastic changes can take effect unchallenged.
Posted by: Jim at June 12, 2009 03:32 PM
I wonder also if their plans for socalized medicine include dentists and veterinarians.
Posted by: TomR at June 12, 2009 03:35 PM
Ava, welcome to Theodore's World, I
noticed your other comments and ok'd
all of them. I get here late so that
is why you had to wait for them to
show up.
Nice to meet you.
Posted by: Wild Thing at June 12, 2009 07:47 PM
Tom, your so right, he does rule, he
doesn't serve at all.
People that do this kind of thing of
turning one group against another,
instigators like that there is an evil
in them. He knows he has his kool aid
drinkers that will believe whatever he
says and don't think for themselves. So
sad really because they will hurt right
along with the rest of us.
Posted by: Wild Thing at June 12, 2009 07:55 PM
Mark, LOL the place online where I get
the pinups from to add to my graphics
only had nurses in the white uniforms.
Nick said too, wow those are from long ago
now they dress in baggie tops and baggie
pants.
Mark, thank you so much for sharing first
hand how it is, thank you wife too, it is
really appreciated. I sure hope with this
horrible obamacare people realize it is
all coming from him and not from the nurses
and doctors. Most will but there will be
the non thinkers that have to blame the
wrong peoople.
Posted by: Wild Thing at June 12, 2009 08:00 PM
Avitar, thank you so much for all of that.
Of all the letters I have written to ask
them not to do this, only two replied
that were not form letters. I was pretty
much told it is a done deal. It just
is such a nightmare we are living now
with Obama in power.
Posted by: Wild Thing at June 12, 2009 08:05 PM
Jim, oh thank God your wife is ok now.
Thank you Jim for sharing about your
wife and the difference I agree with
you so much. Under this with Obama it
will be completely different in so many
ways too many to even list. But they
will be huge each one of them.
Prayers your wife continues to be
doing great and kicking ass too. Big
smile feeling so happy she is ok.
Posted by: Wild Thing at June 12, 2009 08:10 PM
Tom I have been wondering about that too.
Both dentists and veterinarians are soooooo
important. I swear if they mess with anything
to do with our animals I cannot promise I
can hold back. It is hard enough to hold
back when they mess with our military.
Posted by: Wild Thing at June 12, 2009 08:12 PM
