On Nov. 5, 2009, President Obama visited the White House news briefing to share a bit of good news: the American Medical Association (AMA) had come out in support of his administration’s proposed health care reforms.
“The doctors of America know what needs to be fixed about our health care system,” says Obama in a video of the briefing on the White House’s website. “We are closer to passing this reform than ever before, and now that the doctors and medical professionals of America are standing with us … we are even closer.”
But, was it all so simple? Does the AMA really equate to “the doctors of America” as the president said?
A recent report by Forbes estimates that only about 17 percent of doctors in America are members of the AMA.
A survey released earlier this month found that only 13 percent of American physicians agree with the AMA’s support for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), also known as health care reform, or "Obamacare."
Of the physicians who responded to the survey conducted by the physician recruitment firm Jackson & Coker, 77 percent said the AMA does not represent their views and doctors need a different voice.
“The physicians we polled say the AMA is no longer the voice of their profession,” said Sandy Garrett, president of Jackson & Coker, a physician recruitment firm. The poll surveyed 1,611 physicians and has a margin of error of only plus or minus 1.59 percent.
Of those doctors that dropped their membership, 47 percent did so because of the AMA’s support for the PPACA.
In fact, two other major associations of American doctors have come out specifically against the PPACA, including the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) and Docs4PatientCare.
“Our membership has grown steadily since Obamacare became an issue of national concern in the summer of 2009,” wrote Jeremy Snavely of the AAPS, which was founded in 1943, in an email.
Snavely also highlighted the growth in their sphere of influence.
“The number of subscribers to our email newsletter has grown 800 percent, from 2,000 to over 17,000 subscribers during this time period,” said Snavely. “Also our Facebook page has grown from less than 1,000 to over 10,500 fans. In fact, AAPS is getting close to overtaking the AMA on Facebook. They have just over 12,000 fans.”
He pointed out that of the small percentage of doctors who still belong to the AMA, many are medical students who only belong because of the medical benefits.
Also, he touted the fact that the AAPS is completely funded by the dues payments of practicing physicians and does not accept funding from the pharmaceutical industry or any other special interest group. The AMA, on the other hand, depends on a government-granted monopoly on Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) code used in medical billing. Perhaps, then it’s no surprise that the AMA is deferential to the government on health care.
Far from the portrait of American doctors supporting PPACA painted by Obama in November 2009, the real picture looks like almost a complete reversal.
What’s their problem?
Why do the majority of doctors have a problem with Obama’s PPACA? At least some say that further injecting the federal government into the doctor’s office will only make things worse for physicians and patients.
“The two fundamental problems that drive up the cost of health care in the United States are the lack of true competition in the health insurance industry and the isolation of physicians and patients from the true costs of health care,” writes Docs4PatientCare, on their website. “Rather than addressing these problems, Obamacare aggravates them by limiting choices of insurance, increasing regulation, and centralizing decision making.”
As one example, Forbes points out, when the government is paying for your health care bill the doctors end up getting paid only about 56 percent of the private rate for Medicaid, and 81 percent for Medicare. That amounts to a loss to hospitals of around $36.5 billion in 2009. That loss is then passed on to people who have private insurance, making their bills go up.
Instead, Docs4PatientCare encourages getting the government out of the hospital by allowing patients to buy health insurance across state lines, equalizing tax treatment of money spent for health insurance by employers and individuals, and the encouragement of more specific health care plans.
Those also happen to be policies being pushed by Republicans in Congress. It turns out that, unlike the AMA and the AAPS, Docs4PatientCare was founded in 2009, in direct political opposition to the Obama’s health care reform effort. Thus, whether its efforts are purely humanitarian or are tainted with hunger for political power is unclear.
Docs4PatientCare did not respond to a request for comment as of press time.
What is apparently clear is that the majority of American doctors do not support the PPACA law. That’s something to think about since the PPACA will go back into the spotlight ahead of what is likely to be a Supreme Court decision on its constitutionality, next spring.
