'Silent Majority' of Doctors Speak Out, Submit Challenge to the AMA

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Sep 13, 2010, 12:01 ET

SAN DIEGO, Sept. 13 /PRNewswire/ -- As Americans learn what ObamaCare will mean for quality and access to medical services, "we are witnessing an ever-increasing chorus of Americans -- from think tanks to tea partiers to accountants -- who are decrying the underhanded tactics" used to get the legislation passed, including the exploitation of the AMA's claim to speak for doctors.

If the AMA had done its job of representing its constituents, the American people and Congress would have known what doctors really thought about ObamaCare before the final vote was taken. Instead, the "people and doctors of America have been betrayed by self-serving medical leaders," states Adam Frederic Dorin, M.D., a San Diego anesthesiologist.

"The 'change' is hardly a reform," Dorin writes in the fall issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons [http://www.jpands.org/vol15no3/dorin.pdf]. It will create "an overwhelming burden of increased costs, fees, and taxes." Any "protection" in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) is for the interests of trial lawyers.

The AMA chose to disregard the majority dissent within its own ranks, and despite ample opportunity to reverse its misguided endorsement of PPACA, failed to do so. One has to ask: "Why?"

With its net revenue of $70 million to $100 million annually from its exclusive contract with the government to develop and sell billing codes, far greater than its dues revenue, the AMA can apparently afford to disregard the views of doctors, Dorin writes.

AMA President Cecil B. Wilson, M.D., defended the contract, saying "we should all be proud" of the Current Procedural Terminology (CPT(R)), in the AMA eVoice of Aug 27, 2010 [http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/news/newsletters-journal ...]. As he points out, "The AMA derives no income from the federal government for the agreement." That is true, but disingenuous. The agreement enables the AMA to collect from doctors, who are forced to purchase updated code books each year, and to collect royalties from the licensing of the billing codes.

Wilson downplays the significance of the agreement, and the AMA does not make the wording [http://www.aapsonline.org/medicare/hcfaama.txt] readily accessible to members. The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) called attention to it in 1998 [http://www.aapsonline.org/medicare/hcfaama.txt].

Doctor Dorin founded the website http://www.PhysiciansAgainstObamacare.org; he helped organize the National Doctors Tea Party on Aug. 7 in San Diego to call for the repeal of ObamaCare, and to publicize the fact that the AMA does not represent the majority of doctors' views on this legislation.

Physicians Against ObamaCare formally issues the following CHALLENGE TO THE AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION:

"Release the medical billing code copyright monopoly and assign the codes to the 'public domain' in an Internet-based 'freeware' system. This would save American docs 70 to 100 million dollars annually and would go a long way toward the spirit of cost-savings in the healthcare system. Without the unfair coding monopoly, the AMA can then compete fairly, on a level playing field, with other medical groups for the membership it so desperately lacks."

Doctor Dorin has worked with organizations and politicians to achieve the eventual de-funding, repealing, and revising of the misguided and flawed ObamaCare legislation.