The AMA And Central Planning

from Campaign For Liberty:

The AMA and Central Planning


By David McKalip, M.D.

View all 18 articles by David McKalip, M.D.

Published 09/03/10



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Physicians of the Florida Medical Association recently sent a message on health care reform to America and the AMA: The FMA has "no confidence" in "the ability of the AMA leadership to effectively protect the Profession of Medicine in America". AMA leadership aided politicians with dark of night votes -- overcoming bipartisan opposition of a bill that had been rejected by the America people. The AMA provided political cover for a government and corporate takeover of medicine that breaks the trust between patients and doctors -- a betrayal of the finest medical care in the history of the world. Americans cannot trust the AMA leadership on health care at this time.



This expansion of power over patients by bureaucrats and corporate accountants is a threat to the lives of Americans. Technocrats are creating a rationing system in America to deny care to people who need it most -- and who paid for it. The AMA endorsed a bill creating panels that are deciding that cancer drugs decreasing suffering at end of life are "too expensive". Committees are coercing doctors to withhold antibiotics at 24 hours after surgery despite proof that this increases infection rates. Panels force doctors to inappropriately give beta blockers to some heart attack patients resulting in shock and accidental death. Arrogant and untouchable elitists are deciding what medical care patients receive -- not patients with doctors as their trusted advisor.



This is an example of a system that has failed throughout history: Central economic planning. Political committees decide the cost and availability of goods and services. Price controls and rationing are imposed, leading to shortages in physicians, medicines, and surgeries that have given Americans the best cancer survival, shortest waiting times and most patient satisfaction. The AMA endorsed a plan without tort reform that allows nurses and pharmacists to practice medicine. It also expands 16 million people into a failed Medicaid system where patients must go to the ER for care and bankrupts our country for our children. The future of waiting lines, rationing, lower quality and bankruptcy are writ large in its proto-type: Romney care in Massachusetts. Like Obamacare, doctors are put on a budget and punished if they spend a penny more on their patients. Medicare and other patients that would seek to escape from this system will lose all the benefits that they earned through a lifetime of payroll theft.



The original proposal at the FMA was to withdraw our delegation to the AMA -- a separate organization. But one doesn't withdraw Congressmen from Washington and the FMA now seeks to have the AMA once again stand up for the medical profession as a trusted servant of the patient -- not a servant of the state or insurance companies. FMA physicians echoed the sentiment of so many Americans today: we have "no confidence" in the ability of elite politicians to preserve medical freedom for our patients.



In an Op. Ed. In the Florida Times-Union, Brian Klepper and David Kibbe attacked me and the FMA as representing the "Old Guard" and fighting against "progressive" change embraced by AMA leadership. The hailed the ability of people like them (who don't practice medicine) to use computers to micromanage medical care and complain that doctors make money by caring for patients - even as these members of the elite special interest culture work as high priced medical industry consultants. Kibbe sold two health information technology companies and now stands to profit from government mandated computer records. Computer records that are more like Big Brother watching to make sure your doctor is "efficiently" saving money for state-run insurance. Big Brother medicine will actively penalize doctors if they don't ration care. No patient can trust their doctor in such a system.



As a member of the "old guard" that puts patients first and bureaucrats and insurance companies last, I am proud to lead the way to send a clear message to the AMA leadership: start standing up for patients. Like most doctors, I see the AMA leadership as betraying American medicine. I am working to repeal government run medicine and replace it with the great FMA plan that puts patients in charge, lowers costs, and increases quality so the best days of medicine will be ahead of us, and not behind us.





This originally ran in the Florida Times Union