AMA Endorses Senate Health Care Bill

They've drunk the Kool-Aid too. Teh world iz coming 2 an end!!11!!!!eleven!!!11!!

President-elect Cecil Wilson also said:

We are pleased that the manager’s amendment addresses several issues of concern to AMA. It increases payments to primary care physicians and general surgeons in underserved areas while no longer cutting payments to other physicians. It eliminates the tax on physician services for cosmetic surgery and drops the proposed physician enrollment fee for Medicare.

what were their concerns before:

But the medical association objected to some provisions, including a new tax on “elective cosmetic medical procedures” and creation of an Independent Medicare Advisory Board that could “mandate payment cuts for physicians.”

Thirty million Americans without life insurance will be covered. That even this was done in the face of so many failures over the years and against so much opposition is worthy of praise. Single payer, public option, Medicaid expansion are all things I think would have helped make this much better reform, but they were not our primary goal. I wish the cost-containment measures were stronger as well, but a number of credible economists say that, at minimum growth of premiums will slow, and several see a real reduction in the premiums that middle and lower income folks will pay.

Is it perfect? Far from it. But this is the price of coalition governing, even more than the moral and political, if legal, corruption that drives our current campaign finance system.

The simple fact is, whether right or better for "the people", there is not enough public support for the progressive solutions. Which by the way, are my preferred solutions. Then again, it took three bites of the apple to get federal Civil Rights legislation right.

I am certainly no fan, but I like the fact that the AMA is on board. Obama promised that he would reach out. In a sense, we have mainstreamed the idea that in the richest nation on earth every American should have health care. This is an important victory--We should be celebrating.