Word: amas
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...also giving support to the Administration's plan. Pro forma support, anyway; the doctors are pleased the Administration has been listening to them and figure they have put themselves in a position to exert influence in further dickering over what finally emerges from Congress. Privately, confides one high-ranking AMA official, many members would be happy to see the plan defeated "so that we can start all over again and do it right. We want reform," he asserts, but experts estimate that the Clinton plan as it is developing will cost Americans $3,500 a year each on average...
...Association and other groups have complained of being cut out of the process, more than 400 task-force officials have held 237 meetings with outside interest groups and have convened more than a thousand private sessions of its working groups. White House aides dismiss critics' complaints of exclusion. "The AMA doesn't just want a seat at the table," says one. "They want the whole bleeping table...
...past two weeks, the AMA, U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association have publicly jumped on the managed- competition bandwagon. Under fire from the White House for price gouging, the drugmakers last week asked the Justice Department to grant an exemption from antitrust prosecution so that they can negotiate voluntary price restraints. "The train is leaving the station," said a drug lobbyist. "We're just trying to slow the train down long enough . . . to get on board...
Also, effects upon health care providers may complicate any reform plan. The American Medical Association's support for managed competition suggests that physicians consider it the least damaging universal health care proposal. "We've supported that for years," says the AMA spokesperson, although a recent New York Times staff editorial suggests otherwise...
What it does mean is that something more fundamental than the tax code or the insurance industry has to change. We'll simply have to alter our conceptions about the American health care system. The AMA spokesperson says that Americans "have certain expectations...When you're told that you've got to wait six months for coronary bypass surgery, you get upset." This extreme case paints in sharp relief the potential shortcomings of universal care...