Polling Suggests the Once-Great AMA Has Relinquished Its Leadership Role

SAN DIEGO, Nov. 14, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- In a professionally conducted poll done by Jackson & Coker in September of 2011, 77 percent of physicians repudiated the AMA, saying that it no longer represents their views. Seventy percent of the 1,611 physicians polled nationwide said they disagreed with the AMA's support of the health reform law.

"Even in the informal, non-scientific online polling at America's Medical Society (AMS), 93.3% of 955 polled said the AMA DOES NOT REPRESENT THEM; 72.8% of 897 doctors polled said they would OPT OUT OF MEDICARE OR RETIRE EARLY IF OBAMACARE WAS NOT REPEALED OR REVISED; and 95.01% of 1,163 polled said they wanted OBAMACARE REPEALED AND REVISED," says AMS VP Richard Willner. "The point," adds Willner, "is not that we have the percentages accurate, but that we're trying to take the pulse of doctors in the United States and its obvious that they neither favor the AMA nor believe that the 'Affordable Care Act' was honestly brokered."

In the Jackson & Coker poll, 78% of physicians noted that they believed the AMA was ineffective in protecting the independent practice of medicine -- i.e., "one where the government was not ever present in the examination room with them and their patients," notes AMS Founder and President Adam Dorin, M.D., MBA.

In addition to its monopoly on the medical billing codes, which have created a clear conflict of interest and netted the AMA $72 million in 2010 according to their own financial disclosures (2010 Financial Report), physicians have been concerned that the AMA has neither tried to poll the nation's doctors nor weighed in on their side during the healthcare reform debate.

"The problem with the AMA," notes Doctor Dorin, "is that they cut a deal with the government to protect their incredibly rich revenue stream under the guise of reforming the Medicare fee schedule and now they simply don't know how to own up to their mistake and reverse course." AMA executive/staff compensation and benefits were $125.8 million in 2010; the total 2010 assets of the AMA were recorded at $520.3 million.

Contact: R. Willner, [email protected], 202-423-3366

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SOURCE America's Medical Society