AMA Supports Obamacare, but Doctors Don’t Support AMA

Good to know:  Matt Rodgers of Well-spent Journey, in “‘Primum non Nocere’ and the Affordable Care Act” at Liberty without Apologies, points out that the American Medical Association’s membership includes only “somewhere in the neighbourhood of 15% of practising US doctors” (not including the “Up to a third” of AMA members who “don’t pay the full $420 annual dues, including medical students and residents”).  (The source is an article from the Canadian Medical Association Journal as reprinted on the Web site of the U. S. government’s National Center for Biotechnology Information.)  This is useful to know when you hear any remaining supporters of Obamacare argue that the AMA supported or supports the law.  It doesn’t mean that American doctors in general support the law.

On the contrary, he points out that a survey of more than 3,000 American practicing physicians indicates that “Seventy-six percent of doctors said overall healthcare costs would go up due to the new health reform law,” “Sixty percent of doctors said the quality of patient care would be negatively impacted,” etc.  Significantly,

A majority of physicians — 56 percent — also support repealing or defunding the law. Thirty-eight percent said the ACA should remain but should be changed or modified. Only 6 percent of doctors said it should remain unchanged.

If anyone knows of any other surveys of doctors about the ACA, I would be very interested to know about them.  (If there are any, I suspect that they found similar results.)

Related entries:

• “My Personal Experience: Obamacare Just Made My Job Situation Even Worse”

• “Obama Campaign Promised Obamacare Would Reduce Annual Health-care Spending by $2,500 per Average Family; Obama Administration Now Admits Obamacare Will Increase Health-care Spending by $7,450 per Average Family over Eight Years”

• “Obamacare Already Breaking Promises to Reduce Costs, Insure Everyone”

• “Obamacare Won’t ‘Solve’ Uninsured Problem, Either”

• “More on Obamacare”

• (Even) “More on Obamacare”

• “‘Reality can get 2% of the vote, and it will still trump everything else.’”

• “Obamacare Forces Insurance Companies to Pay for Quack Medicine”