GOP Doc Group Blasts AMA for Backing House Bill
medpagetoday.com
By Emily P. Walker, Washington Correspondent, MedPage Today
Published: July 20, 2009
WASHINGTON, July 20 -- A group of Republican doctors in the House of Representatives has fired off an angry letter to the American Medical Association (AMA), criticizing the group for supporting the House Democrats' healthcare reform bill.
"We fully believe that the AMA has lost touch with the vast majority of physicians in this country," wrote the members of the GOP Doctors Caucus, which includes 10 medical doctors, one PhD, a dentist, and an optometrist.
The AMA has a membership of about 236,000 physicians, but only about half of those are practicing physicians.
"Several important principles that you have strongly advocated for in the past are missing from the bill, such as liability reform, Medicare payment reform, and antitrust issues," the group wrote in its letter to Michael Maves, MD, executive vice president and CEO of the AMA.
While the AMA has opposed healthcare reform efforts in the past, this time around, the group has been a steady presence in reform talks, and President Obama spoke to the AMA at its annual meeting in June where he told the group that he needs its support. (See AMA: Obama Reception Warm But Wary)
Last week, the AMA sent a letter to the three House committees working on the legislation. The group said it supports provisions in the bill to reform the sustainable growth rate formula used to calculate Medicare physicians' payments, and to add additional payments for primary care physicians without reducing payments to specialists. (See Final Version of House Bill Would Give Primary Care Docs a Pay Boost and Reform and Week 5: AMA Supports House Bill, Senate Panel Sends Bill to Floor)
James Rohack, MD, president of the AMA, said in the letter that the bill "includes a broad range of provisions that are key to effective, comprehensive health system reform."
The main sticking point between Republicans and Democrats in the House and the Senate bill is a proposed government-run health insurance option that would compete with private plans.
The House bill has already been reported out of the two committees and sent to the House floor, while the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee finished work on its bill. But the Senate Finance Committee has yet to introduce its own version.
In its letter sent on Friday, the GOP Doctors Caucus blasted the AMA for supporting legislation that contains a public plan that would reimburse doctors at Medicare-like rates.
"Under this scheme, your members will be unable to negotiate payment structures that will reflect their costs, thereby forcing many of them to close their doors. As a result . . . more doctors will inevitably retire and less students will choose to pursue the worthy profession of medicine," the GOP letter said.
Aside from poor reimbursement rates, the GOP Doctors Caucus opposes a government run plan because it feels the government would be an unfair competitor and drive the private insurance industry into the ground.
"As we all try to work together to reach sensible and comprehensive health care reform, we would like to remind you that 'reform' in this case should not be synonymous with 'government-run'," the group said.
The letter was signed by Republicans Phil Gingrey, MD, Paul Broun, MD, Tom Price, MD, and John Linder, DDS, all of Georgia; Charles Boustany, MD, Bill Cassidy, MD, and John Fleming, MD, all of Louisiana; Michael Burgess, MD, and Ron Paul, MD, both of Texas; Phil Roe, MD, of Tennessee; Mike Simpson, MD, of Idaho; John Boozman, OD, of Arkansas; and Tim Murphy, PhD, of Pennsylvania. |
