AMAnesia
Monday, June 15 2009
The WSJ live-blogged the AMA’s response to President Obama’s speech today:
2:03 [AMA President-elect J. James] Rohack says the president’s coming there today recognizes the important role that doctors play in health care. The AMA represents all doctors in the U.S. His coming recognizes that doctors are there for their patients, and if doctors don’t believe reform will be good for their patients, we’ll let our patients know.
Wow. Let’s ignore the claim that AMA represents all doctors; will doctors really tell their patients whether or not they support reform? Magic eight ball says “no”, which is too bad. It would be nice to have some space for dialogue, maybe encourage doctors to see their patients as social creatures. But it’s not going to happen.
Anyway, I don’t think Dr. Rohack is saying that your doctor will actually talk to you about reform. What I think Rohack is saying is that if the AMA doesn’t like reform, it will launch a noisy public campaign against that reform, all the while posturing as if the organization is acting in the best interests of patients.
I suppose Dr. Rohack hopes we’ve already forgotten last week’s fiasco, or Operation Coffecup, or any of the other times AMA has opposed reform – to the enduring detriment of patients. Perhaps he himself has forgotten the AMA’s long history of conflating patients’ interests with doctors’ financial gain – and nothing in this press conference suggests the AMA sees any daylight between the two.
I wish there was a patient organization to act as foil against the AMA, but the sad truth is the AMA still has more clout than any patient advocacy organization. Even if other doctors’ groups are doing better for their patients than the AMA, that’s still a poor substitute for patients having their own voice in the debate.
