President Obama stated that the American Medical Association and the American Association of Retired Persons both support the proposed healthcare reform bill. That’s not earth-shattering, until you think it through and realize how absolutely and ridiculously unlikely that statement really is.
The AMA claims to represent the physicians of the nation. In fact, though, they represent only a small fraction of the doctors in the United States. Their numbers have been in sharp decline for years. Some say that if they didn’t claim copyright and gain licensing money from the Procedures Codes, the AMA would have folded long ago.
Similarly, the AARP has come under scrutiny from allegations of some rather dubious advertising selections. It seems the AARP only recommends things that make them a lot of money. The organization is reported to gain fees from all manner of things that are supposedly better choices for their retiree members. Think there might be just a tad bit of bias there? So the President claims to have the support of two organizations who claim to have the support of two groups of people who both have large investment in the results. Yet the facts seem to tell very different tales. Far more physicians’ sentiments are being echoed by other organizations. Ditto the senior citizens, who have been the pawns of medical insurance for decades. But you don’t have to vet the facts that far. Just pay a LITTLE attention to the word on the street, Mr. President, and you’ll hear a nation full of people, your constituents, who are anything BUT on board with any of the plans that Congress proposed.
For the physicians’ part, we’re very clear and outspoken about the fact that no healthcare plan can be successful without addressing frivolous lawsuits aggressively. That is the ONLY way to cut the fat and allow doctors to return to performing as healers, instead of practicing defensive medicine. Any healthcare plan which excludes or ignores this reality is doomed from its inception.
Medical Justice makes no such claims. We don’t pretend to know the will of the people. We represent only our members. In doing so, though, we’ve found that they’re pretty consistently in favor of helping those in true need. Physicians are nothing if not compassionate. Our members have found out first-hand that medical malpractice suits become nearly non-existent once the attorneys find out that we can and will fight back. That’s why our members KNOW that tort reform is essential to healthcare reform.
Just who are these masses who supposedly endorse the Congress plan, Mister President? With all due respect, sir, the People want and deserve something much better than what Congress has to offer these days. None of the above, please. Tell them to go back and put a sharper pencil to it, Mr. President. Don’t let them just pass SOME bill. The real people of this nation need a healthcare plan that actually works.
