How did the AMA get so powerful? Are doctors required to join it?

Of course, the only candidate with a real solution is the one that isn't beholden to the corporations. And, oh yeah, the media is largely controlled by corporations, so even when he wins a debate, he gets no press.

Kucinich has the answer.

Health care should not be a for profit enterprise. Even if government is incompetent, it will still be better than competent greedy bastards doing everything to maximize profits, even if it means not providing care. This is especially true of the health insurance industry.

When a baptist preacher in Canada just after the second world war proposed Canada,s healthcare system quess who was against it and fought it all the way, Yes the doctors. Luckily for us they lost.
Now they have the greatest benefit and are getting rich and some of them are sending bogus invoices to the government.
Intelligent people are not always smart.

Instead of providing 'insurance', which is pretty much a racket anyway, why don't they just
spend the money a little more
frugally, and set up a 50-state network of hospitals
that work to provide public
healthcare, like on a 30/70
plan? Since the whole thing
seems to basically exist
off government subsidy anyway, direct or indirect,
why not be straightforward
and subsidize 70% of the costs of public hospitals,
and have the public pay full
price out-of-pocket up to
a certain amount, then 30/70
takes over from there? If it's
under 2 grand, for example,
you pay the whole amount, past
that there's government assistance. Do case-by-case
exceptions after that, but use
something like that as the
basic standard....?

The history may be checkered, but just because they're only now seeing the light and changing their minds, does it really help to call that "disingenuous"? Any organization is made up of many individuals and I have no doubt that some within the AMA have been working for years to make this change possible. Perhaps it would be more productive to the cause of universal health care to laud those folks' achievements instead of acting like they can't really mean it because of previous policy agendas. It's just not useful to refuse to let people join your cause.

The AMA is not nearly as powerful a lobbying force as it once was, in part because it has been slow to adapt to changing opinions among many of the country's physicians and have consequently hemorrhaged membership. In fact, the majority of America's doctors support universal health care, but the AMA still resists anything beyond giving lip service to the idea. The top docs who head up the organization are not really evil or greedy, they are just incredibly naive and have repeatedly made themselves willing pawns to the hidden agendas of their "partners" in the health insurance and drug industries.

Looking at it from a historical perspective, there are a few more issues behind this change in policy. When the AMA was lobbying against universal health insurance in 1948 the majority of doctors had their own practice and the field was dominated by white males. Since then managed care has come into existence, but instead of universal health care managed by the government, we have for profit health care managed by corporations. Doctors (for the most part) no longer have private practices. Additionally, more women and minorities have entered the field. Before you lump all doctors into the greedy lobbyist category please take these things into account. The field is changing and more people are choosing to become doctors because of a true desire to help their fellow man. They believe in universal health care and make large sacrifices of time and energy to truly serve the community they are in.

My spouse is a MD. NEVER joined the AMA. There is no requirement to join.

There are not 50 million permanantely uninsured...More like half that number.

One of my sons is an MD 10 years past residencies and fellowships. He is a member of the AMA and works for a hospital attached to a medical school. For years he has been telling me that this health system is failing to serve the needs of the great majority of people, and he has always been in favor of a universal service run by the government, with no insurance middle man. His income would probably suffer, but he owns only one suit (for meetings), he is a vegetarian, does not drink, does not smoke, his only vice is books, has only one vehicle, walks to work, votes Green, and his children go to public schools. I have started a campaign to get him excited about Canada. I believe there is a shortage of doctors there and I think he would be happier in that environment.
The woman who cuts my hair is in her fifties and she does not have benefits. She is diabetic, although she is rail thin, and she expends $400.00 a month on prescription medicines. She had an operation 2 yrs. ago which cost $75,000, and she is paying $300 per month to the hospital. She supports her mother who lives with her. She has to drive to work, one hour, so she needs a car in working order. Add housing, food, utilities. I have no idea how she makes it on minimun wage. We are on a retirement income, so it is not like we have much, but at least we have Medicare.
On the other side of the coin, we have a friend whose father died a few years ago and left his mother $800,000. The idea was that she would live on that and their two sons would inherit what was left. She had a house paid for, and some other income. She became ill shortly after he died and today the money in the bank is gone, the house has been sold, she is still ill and disabled, but alive, and the two sons are struggling to pay her bills.
I don't expect that anything dramatic is going to happen regarding health care. The concerned lobbies are two strong, and the politicians who are considered electable, of either party, do not have what it takes. What this country needs is another Frnklin D. Roosevelt. Does anyone see one around?

The benefits for uninsured people are better than those who have insurance. I have a friend who is lower middle class in money making. She and her husband are having a baby. They are insured. They recently found out because of when their baby is due they will have to pay close to $2000 to the doctor and it will have to be paid by the 7th month before the baby is even born. That is if nothing goes wrong. This is a major problem for them b/c they didn't plan for that in their budget. They both work very hard and are trying to better themselves but are very upset when both sides of their families have received assistance and had their children for free. There are no discounts or write offs for those people who have insurance no matter how much or little money they make.

They still pay for their insurance and it is not cheap. They want to pay their way but it seems to get harder and harder.

Ames ... *only* 25 megapeople? And that's OK with you I presume?

People who think the government ought to be dealing out health care (presumably as efficiently as they inspect our foods and bridges) love to toss out this "45 (or 50) MILLION Uninsured Americans" as justification for putting the US Bureaucracy in charge of our medicine.

Someone actually took the time to analyze WHO all those 45 (or 50) million "Americans" actually are.
It's an eye-opener, (for those willing to have their eyes opened).
["...-- 45 million -- without medical insurance. As I reported in previous columns, our government aggravates that problem by making insurance artificially expensive with, for example, mandates for coverage that many people would not choose and forbidding us to buy policies from companies in another state.

Even with these interventions, the 45 million figure is misleading. Thirty-Seven percent of that group live in households making more than $50,000 a year, says the U.S. Census Bureau. Nineteen percent are in households making more than $75,000 a year; 20 percent are not citizens, and 33 percent are eligible for existing government programs but are not enrolled."]
Source: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/08/why_the_us_ranks_low_on_whos_h.html

That reduces the number of American Citizens actually NEEDING health coverage they can't get to about 4.5 million, and while that MAY argue that the existing programs might ought to be expanded to cover those needy who are not now eligible (though there ARE other options), it hardly seems to argue for turning the whole of the nation's health care system over to the least efficient organization imaginable.

Still, for some, federal goverment is the 'solution' of first choice for anything and everything, regardless of their extensive and lengthy record of failures.

I think this is one of those issues where they need to go through all the lists of proponents of all this healthcare spending, and start looking at their portfolios, start looking for
conflicts of interest.
Kickbacks, payola, 'friends',
whatever, there's a LOT of
money in so-called 'healthcare', if modern medicine devolves into
a racket where doctors make
more money prescribing treatments and medications that people really don't need, well, then you have
runaway phenomenon where you
used to have a public resource.

In response to: Still, for some, federal government is the 'solution' of first choice for anything and everything, regardless of their extensive and lengthy record of failures.
====
"You're doing a heck of a job Brownie." When you put incompetent cronies in top government posts..the government can never be effective.

Socialized medicine is a huge failure;no doctors will accept Medi-Cal(Medicaid)or Medicare in the state of California.Fewer doctors will take Medicare.Doctors will not ACCEPT SOCIALIZED,GOVT. INSURANCE,they will demand MONEY.Trying to pass Universal Health Care will only result in the AMA,hospitals,and doctors in refusing to accept it from patients,and turning masses of them away.They ALREADY DO THIS,with the socialized insurance that already exsists.Medicare and Medicaid are worthless.If you have them,doctors let you die.

@ John: Don't ignore the words "extensive" and "lengthy", and pretend that massive government failures only date back 7 years.

Remember Prohibition?
Know the result?
Remember the War on Poverty?
Know the result?
Remember the War on Illiteracy?
Know the result?
Remember the War on Drugs?
Know the result?

Bush didn't start any of those failures, and appointed relatively few of his own cronies in proportion to the total number of cronies who've been involved in the failures.
But if you want to make believe that Dems are less failure-prone in the undertakings they tell us are important enough for federal government to declare "war", (though government never has the balls to declare a REAL one anymore) then that's your own problem, and your own blinders if you choose to wear them.

Remember Prohibition?
Know the result? Not relevant to this issue
Remember the War on Poverty?
Know the result? Substantial decrease in poverty...Unfortunately this policy was not sustainable because of the voracious costs of the war in Vietnam

Remember the War on Drugs?
Know the result?
Funny you mentioned this, being that this was a "war" brought to us by Republicans Nixon and Reagan.

Sorry, but the conservative theory of "the government is ALWAYS the problem has been discredited."

[Not relevant to this issue]
When the issue is an extensive and lengthy list of failures at government's biggest, 'most important' undertakings, it most certainly IS.
Why would it NOT be, when you've acknowledged the drug war as relevant?

[Substantial decrease in poverty...]
Don't think so, but if you've got some figures to show there was even a temporary 'substantial' decrease, I'm willing to look at them & learn.
So Johnson chose an undeclared shooting war over a phony 'declared' one.
Way to prioritize, LBJ!

[Funny you mentioned this, being that this was a "war" brought to us by Republicans Nixon and Reagan.]
Yeah, and Carter continued it between Nixon & Reagan, then Clinton expanded it, used the military (Coast Guard) for interdiction, etc., etc. Clinton's 'justice' department presided over the imprisonment of more marijuana 'criminals' than during any previous 8 year period in history.
Bush has continued on pace.
And the result?
So what reason is there for any preference of the one party over the other on the issue?

Nothing to say about the War on Illiteracy, or the result?

[Sorry, but the conservative theory of "the government is ALWAYS the problem has been discredited."]
MY theory is that federal government has seldom if ever been a good performer in it's massive undertakings, most often presiding over a situation that becomes worse than it was before they involved themselves, and you haven't presented anything to 'discredit' THAT.
Any theory that the government should be the first, or is likely to be the best 'solution' just falls on it's face in light of this extensive and lengthy list of failures at what they tell us are the 'most important' tasks, except perhaps for those who willingly wear the blinders.

Blame yourselves. Americans are a cold and mean spirited
people. The disconnect between how u percieve yourselves and the relality of what u are is mind boggling

[Americans are a cold and mean spirited
people. The disconnect between how u percieve yourselves and the relality of what u are is mind boggling]

a carefully calculated approach to make us want to be more like you and yours, whoever that may be

Garry,

Stereotyping really brings us all together, doesn't it?