Great news! Thanks, Jason

big wow.
someone tell the blue dogs.

Given that those who run the AMA are conservative and favor the status quo, this endorsement has less to do with extending healthcare to more Americans and more to do with keeping the current payment structures largely intact and, although I think this is doubtful, streamlining some of the paper work and thereby increasing physicians’ profit margins.

“market reforms” or merely guaranteed insurance profits?

Of course they love this plan. It “requires” people to buy health insurance. And if they don’t buy it, they get fined.

It might even be stupider than what we have now.

I believe this is a good thing. People tend to like and trust their doctors and will feel that if doctors agree that we need a new plan, then we do. It also, IMO, pushes politicians – a change is inevitable and demanded. I’ll take any assistance we can get at this point.

It might even be stupider than what we have now.

yep. young healthy people are opting out of the scam, refusing to pay premiums in when they are healthy because they know the insurance companies will try to refuse to pay when they are sick.

so, the companies asked the Democrats in Washington to force people to pay for their crap policies . . . nice!

Dennis Kuccinich is offering an amendment today that would allow individual states to enact single payer even if the Federal legislation does not propose single payer nationally. Hit the phones

“The fate of the Kucinich Amendment rests in the hands of Democrats on the House Education and Labor Subcommittee: Robert Andrews, Yvette Clarke, Joe Courtney, Marcia Fudge, Phil Hare, Rush Holt, Dale Kildee, Dave Loebsack, Carolyn McCarthy, Joe Sestak, John Tierney, and David Wu.”

Let’s have some mandates:

– $100 for each pound overweight (burp)

– walk 2 miles per day, or else…

– join an affordable health club, or else…

Why not — if we’re talking mandates and health (as opposed to health insurance)?

An amendment like this has already been shot down.

Those voting for the amendment:

Bernie Sanders
Tom Harkin
Sherrod Brown
Jeff Merkley

All Republicans and all other Democrats voted against it.

They’re also looking for some legislation to cap medical malpractice awards. At the VA the physicians’ biggest complaint was how much they had to pay out for malpractice insurance and I left in 1996.

You got that right!

We have been screwed again by the house of insurance. The bribes worked, and don’t kid yourself that we won’t even see this much unless we whip some serious ass that this is a crap bill that Americans will not accept.

you may be right – but this is significant and will provide more pressure

It’s already given me blood pressure.

Maybe the AMA is using reverse psychology, but that would have to mean they have low self-esteem — which is unlikely.

The House bill gives you breaks on your premiums if you keep up your health, I believe.

less than 30% of doctors are members of the AMA, think it is less than 24% actually, but let’s not quibble. The AMA is a front for the insurance industry. Look at their last attacks.

Michael D. Maves, MD, MBA

was just reading somewhere last week, that Maves represents the next generation of AMA and is busy dragging them kicking and screaming in to the 21st Century

last week’s reportage reflected 21%.

Don’t kid yourselves. This is a hugely positive event. The train is starting to leave the station, and this will put increased pressure on the Senate.

AMA knows there will be further compromises, and that the Senate may well screw this up further, but their coming out on the House side strengthens the bargaining hand of the House against the weakening that is bound to come from the Senate. AMA is now a club in reformers hands, and that’s a good thing. Watch how the media plays this.

Ummm… VA docs don’t have to pay malpractice insurance. The gov. (their employer) pays it for them.

Pull the other one!

Here’s the House bill draft : http://graphics8.nytimes.com/p…..HEALTH.pdf

Let’s read it together and find out what is really in it. I have read about 200 pages and I am going to have to go back and read it again. It does have a public option and my only concern is that you might still be able to go bankrupt if the cost sharing (copays) is too severe and prolonged in the case of a severe and enduring illness.

You’re right. It won’t kick in for four years and at least nine million people will remain uninsured. When people realize that it will be cheaper for them to pay the penalty for not purchasing the insurance rather than paying for the insurance, that number will increase considerably.

AMA support either means the bill is a total crock and will make doctors and hospitals even more wealthy OR they are really scared of the wildly building vocal public anger that the congress isn’t proposing a true free national health care plan like European countries have and they want this passed FAST to stop that alternative.

Let’s examine the possibilities.
From their letter: with my suspected between the lines comments in parenthesis

” In particular, we are pleased that the bill:

• Promises to extend coverage to all Americans through health insurance market reforms;

(requires everyone pay into the crap system by penalizing them if they don’t buy health insurance = more money for those making money from the system.)

• Provides consumers with a choice of plans through a health insurance exchange;

(mostly a choice of private plans that are expensive – no real change)

• Includes essential health insurance reforms such as eliminating coverage denials based on pre-existing conditions;

(everyone sees the value in that. that means doctors and patients will get more care and more care business.)

• Recognizes that fundamental Medicare reforms, including repeal of the sustainable growth rate formula, are essential to the success of broader health system reforms;

(anyone want to guess this means that doctors and hospitals will be getting MORE money from medicare? hospitals hate current medicare payments limits but need it becuase it is a huge portion of their business. )

• Encourages chronic disease management and care coordination through additional funding for primary care services, without imposing offsetting payment reductions on specialty care;

(gives hospitals and doctors more money for chronic care but doesn’t stop us from ranking in huge bucks on wildly overpriced “speciality treatment”)

• Addresses growing physician workforce concerns;

(hmmm like what ? competition? stopping alternative providers? must be something here that enforces the AMA monopoly.)

• Strengthens the Medicaid program;

(ie gives more money to doctors for patient care)

• Requires individuals to have health insurance, and provides premium assistance to those who cannot afford it;

(again this means that doctors will have a much larger annual money/premium pool to charge to with few new sick people since mostly young healthy people will be the ones paying into a system that they don’t pay into now. Thus hospitals and doctors will be able to raise their prices.)

• Includes prevention and wellness initiatives designed to keep Americans healthy;

(hmm.. doctors will get paid to treat / examine unsymtomatic healthy people – could be good for both.)

• Makes needed improvements to the Physician Quality Reporting Initiative that will enable greater participation by physicians; and

(means physicians will be able to counter anyone who write true comments about how their doctor sucks and mistreated them.)

• Initiates significant payment and delivery reforms by encouraging participation in new models such as accountable care organizations and the patient-centered medical home.

(payment reforms must mean more money to doctors here or else they wouldn’t be for it. they wouldn’t be for it if “reform” meant cost controls.)

There is one thing I will say about a system that includes a government insurance program as a competitor to private plans.

In the end the private plan will inevitable go bankrupt if they are forced to accept the same patients as the government program becuase private plans have more administrative overhead AND they must have some percentage of PROFIT.

therefore EVENTUALLY all business will turn to the government plan (but apparently they will be prevented form doing so unless “they can’t afford their current private plan any longer”

Thus businesses will all eventually be able to no longer afford private insurance with it’s 30% overhead and 20% profit factors compared to the 7% government overhead and 0% profit requirement.

The problem for those living now is that may take 10 years to happen.
In the meantime they will suffer and die in their private insurance plans.

“• Requires individuals to have health insurance, and provides premium assistance to those who cannot afford it;”

Mandated heath care is corporate servitude, in the absence of effective cost control measures!! A “life tax” where the government uses a tax penalty levied against a citizen who doe not want to enter nor should be forced to enter into a contract with a tax exempt corporation such as BCBS? Is this a “”taking”" where your liberty is extracted under the color of unconstitutional law, to protect corporations again?

I just wonder if the 800 billion dollars we spend on just gasoline as a nation this year could have been better spent once extracted from the population. Considering 70 cents on every dollar spent for gasoline is wasted in the form of heat, with @ .30 cents gong to actual kinetic energy….. what a waste of money!

Understand this… Jefferson feared corporate monopolies… and mandated healthcare is a corporation’s wet dream which will render Americans subservient to corporations as sure as the Dred Scott decision kept slaves shackled and considered property to be exploited for profit, in clear violation of the “Bill of Rights,” for the benefit of a seedling corporate ownership society. Corporate servitude is an insidious form slavery which to be enabled under the color of law requires the suspension of logic and reason, as manifest in Justice Taney’s dreaded Dred Scott vs Sanford decision!

http://www.law.cornell.edu/sup…..93_ZO.html

Upon the whole, therefore, it is the judgment of this court that it appears by the record before us that the plaintiff in error is not a citizen of Missouri in the sense in which that word is used in the Constitution, and that the Circuit Court of the United States, for that reason, had no jurisdiction in the case, and could give no judgment in it. Its judgment for the defendant must, consequently, be reversed, and a mandate issued directing the suit to be dismissed for want of jurisdiction.

Look out America

http://www.law.cornell.edu/sup…..93_ZO.html

“Moreover, the plaintiff, it appears, brought a similar action against the defendant in the State court of Missouri, claiming the freedom of himself and his family upon the same grounds and the same evidence upon which he relies in the case before the court. The case was carried before the Supreme Court of the State, was fully argued there, and that court decided that neither the plaintiff nor his family were entitled to freedom, and were still the slaves of the defendant,……”

Good night………