I gather that the following is a Politico summary of one of its paid newsletters:

AMA BACKS DOWN FROM SINGLE PAYER FIGHT: “Doctors in the American Medical Association who want the powerful physicians’ group to drop its longstanding opposition to a single-payer, government-run health care system backed down from their plan to force the issue in the group’s House of Delegates on Tuesday,” POLITICO’s Daniel Payne reports.

— “Fears of political backlash from Republicans in Congress prompted the advocates of single-payer to change course, according to one of the members of the delegation that led the effort, granted anonymity to discuss private conversations.”

— “A committee of the AMA’s governing body, its House of Delegates, reviewed the resolution and said in its report that passage would jeopardize efforts on Capitol Hill to change how Medicare pays doctors. That concern was shared by AMA staff, who warned delegates the measure could get in the way of Medicare payment reform, according to the delegate who spoke to POLITICO.”

What goes unsaid in this summary is that doctor pay is one of the major obstacles to single-payer plans, since they rely on cuts in payment rates to make their numbers come closer to adding up. Apparently some AMA members who otherwise were open to debating single payer thought better of it because they didn’t want to jeopardize “Medicare-payment reform” — i.e., getting higher payment rates out of Medicare. If that’s their priority, wait until they find out what single payer itself would mean for their incomes.

QOSHE - Socialized Medicine’s Doctor Problem - Ramesh Ponnuru
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Socialized Medicine’s Doctor Problem

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17.11.2023

I gather that the following is a Politico summary of one of its paid newsletters:

AMA BACKS DOWN FROM SINGLE PAYER FIGHT: “Doctors in the American Medical Association who want the powerful physicians’ group to drop its longstanding opposition to a single-payer, government-run health care system backed down from their plan to force the issue in the group’s House of........

© National Review


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