Friday's Wall Street Journal health blog notes major physician organizations are divided on the Senate health care reform bill. As reported earlier on this blog, the AMA sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) saying that it supported some but not all of the bill's provisions and that it would reserve judgment until the bill's final version is settled on.
Among other things, the group likes that the bill makes insurance more accessible, eliminates copayments for certain preventive health services and increases research on which treatments are most effective. AMA succeeded in keeping out of the bill some provisions that irked doctors. A Senate Finance Committee proposal to penalize doctors who administer the greatest quantities of test and treatments, designed to penalize over-users, didn't make it into the Senate bill.
But lots of other provisions that worry doctors did. AMA is against the bill's call to give more power to an independent commission that could cut Medicare spending. It's opposed to Medicare payment changes that take money from specialists' payments and increases pay for primary care doctors. It's also against reworking the Medicare payment system to reward doctors for producing better health outcomes, which is says can't be measured scientifically....
Surgeons are taking a harder stance. Nineteen surgical groups, including neurosurgeons, anesthesiologists and gynecologists, wrote to Reid this week saying they flatly oppose the Senate health bill. The California Medical Association also came out against the bill this week.
Both those groups cited the Medicare payment commissions as a key reason they're against the bill, as well as the fact that it does not permanently reverse deep cuts to physicians payments through Medicare that are scheduled to take effect next year unless Congress intervenes - also a concern of the AMA. All three groups have largely the same likes and dislikes about the bill. It's just that the surgeons and the California doctors have chosen to portray them as deal breakers, while the AMA has not.
The AMA had previously endorsed the House health house reform bill, but the Senate bill will require some work to win physician's approval.
Read the WSJ blog here, and our previous blog posts on the AMA's letter to Reid and on the AMA's endorsement of the House bill here and here.
