Hugh Hewitt has been calling on the nation’s doctors to take their customary leading role of trust by Americans to oppose Obamacare, especially the so-called “public” (read, government) health insurance that would displace private insurance at astronomical costs, bureaucracy, and interference in medical advancements and treatment decisions. Hewitt has been pessimistic they would, feeling the American Medical Association is “cowed…by the Obama/Pelosi/Reid hard-left edge of the Democratic Party.”
Hewitt should have had more faith in the AMA’s 250,000 doctors. The New York Times reports:
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.”
The New York Times tries to cushion the blow to Obamacare advocates by saying:
The A.M.A., an umbrella group for 180 medical societies, does not speak for all doctors. One group, Physicians for a National Health Program, supports a single-payer system of insurance, in which a single public agency would pay for health services, but most care would still be delivered by private doctors and hospitals.
However, the New York Times fails to mention that the Physicians for a National Health Program claims just “more than 16,000 members,” and that one does not have to be a physician to join, its joining page requiring just “$40 / Year -- Health reform advocates (Non Physicians)” to be a member.
I suppose that the NYTs’ coverage of Obama’s speech to the AMA’s convention next Monday will laud Obama for his great courage in telling the overwhelming majority of the nation’s doctors they don’t know medicine.
Tracked: Jun 11, 20:01