Head of Christian Doctors Group Quits AMA Over Pro-Abortion Advocacy

The doctor who is the chairman of a national organization for Christian physicians and medical workers has resigned from the American Medical Association. Dr. David Stevens, the head of the 17,000-member Christian Medical Association, says the AMA has become a pro-abortion advocacy group.
 
Stevens told LifeNews.com on Tuesday that he is canceling his membership in the American Medical Association as a way of publicly protesting what he says is the AMA’s control by special interests that do not represent most physicians.

The AMA has come under fire for endorsing healthcare overhaul legislation after closed-door negotiations with legislators even though it contains the largest expansion of abortion funding since Roe v. Wade.

“I can no longer associate with or support an organization that is unscientific, unprofessional and controlled by special interests,” Dr. Stevens asserted in a letter sent earlier this week to the AMA.

Read the rest of the story here.

Obamacare: Five Ways You're Going to Pay and Not Get Paid

The following has been excerpted from an op-ed by by Tony Cirillo, MD, Washington's Trillion Dollar Health Fix.
 

Increase in the federal income tax rate

Sure, be a team player. Pick up that extra uncovered shift on the schedule. But don’t pick up too many, because the max federal tax rate is going to go up…probably to 39%. Especially for you really hardworking stiffs making more than $250K per year, it’s time to start doing the math before you work too hard and end up giving most of that extra shift to Uncle Sam.

Decrease in the reduction for charitable contributions

Better think twice about buying those Thin Mints from the next door neighbor’s kid, or giving to the YMCA, United Way or any other charity. Why, because the amount of that contribution that you could deduct from your federal income taxes is going to go down, probably from 42 to 29 cents on the dollar. So much for give until it hurts, now it’s give until you bleed.

Bundling

“What the heck is bundling?” you ask. Bundling is going to be one of the key strategies to reduce federal expenditures on healthcare in the upcoming years. Here’s how this special trick is going to work. Instead of the government paying for each portion of a patient’s care (i.e. Hospital charge, radiologist charge, emergency physician charge during a single ED visit) the feds are going to come up with a single payment for an “episode of care”. They are then going to come up with a single payment (which you can bet is going to be less than the current sum of the parts), and then they are going to give it to one entity (probably the hospital). It will then be up to all of the participants to somehow divide the total payment. Gee, I wonder if the hospitals will just be nice and treat the ED docs as well as their radiologists, surgeons, cardiologists, hospitalists and every other specialty that will stake a claim for the money the hospital receives. This is where those years of schmoozing your hospital CEO and CFO will pay off. Oh, you haven’t been doing that? Too bad! Back of the line for you.

The AMA looks the other way 

After 30 years of letting the insurers, hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies skim all the profits in healthcare while physicians were getting, at best 0-1% updates from Medicare, I’m not convinced that the AMA is really who I want representing me in the big healthcare debate. And now we’re supposed to believe that because the insurers, hospitals, big pharma and the AMA sent some flowery, Kumbaya, “we’re all in this together” letter to the President, docs aren’t still going to get the short end of the stick (or dollar in this case)? Haven’t those same for-profit groups been shafting docs all along? Why should they play nice now?

Tort Reform?
Don’t hold your breath

Haven’t heard much talk about that in the healthcare reform debate, now have you? Probably not going to either. No, tort reform won’t be a big player in the healthcare debate, due in no small part to the historically friendly relationship between the powerful trial lawyer lobby and the democratic party. What we’ll get instead of a discussion of tort reform is a discussion about “more effective medicine.” That’s right, the federal government is going to do effectiveness research and tell us doctors what the “right” thing to do is, or at least what they will pay you for. But don’t worry, you probably won’t be immune from being sued even if you follow that standard.

Click here to read the entire article.

ObamaCare out of touch with U.S. physicians

A new poll finds that despite the American Medical Association's support for President Obama's healthcare plan, most specialty doctors strongly oppose the plan.

The American Society of Medical Doctors has released a poll of physicians that finds 86 percent of specialty doctors believe that the American Medical Association has become too political and has lost touch with the doctors it represents.

The American Medical Association, or AMA, which gave Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy its highest award for public service earlier this year, has endorsed President Obama's government-run healthcare plan. Seventy percent of the specialty doctors surveyed in the poll said they oppose current congressional and White House proposals for healthcare reform.

Jean Card, a spokeswoman for the American Society of Medical Doctors, says the polling shows that many doctors fear President Obama's healthcare plan threatens their ability to honor the Hippocratic Oath.

Click here to read more.