Delegates Outline Objections to Current Reform Proposals
At their Interim Meeting last month in Houston, AMA delegates expressed commitment to working for health care reform consistent with critical principles of AMA policy. Also, delegates approved an extensive 14-item resolution about health care reform. One of those 14 items was devoted to outlining the AMA's opposition to aspects of health care reform currently under consideration in the Senate, where a bill may be voted on before the end of the year.
Principles of health care reform:
| •. | Health insurance coverage for all Americans | ||||
| •. | Insurance market reforms that expand choice of affordable coverage and eliminate denials for preexisting conditions or due to arbitrary caps | ||||
| •. | Assurance that health care decisions will remain in the hands of patients and their physicians, not insurance companies or government officials | ||||
| •. | Investments and incentives for quality improvement and prevention and wellness initiatives | ||||
| •. | Repeal of the Medicare physician payment formula | ||||
| •. | Implementation of medical liability reforms | ||||
| •. | Streamlining and standardization of insurance claims processing requirements | ||||
Delegates called on the AMA to “actively and publicly oppose” the following:
| •. | Reduced payments to physicians for failing to report quality data when there is evidence that widespread operational problems in this program still have not been corrected by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services | ||||
| •. | Medicare payment rate cuts mandated by a commission that would create a double-jeopardy situation for physicians who are already subject to an expenditure target and potential payment reductions under the Medicare physician payment system | ||||
| •. | Medicare payment cuts for higher utilization with no operational mechanism to assure that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services can report accurate information that is properly attributed and risk-adjusted | ||||
| •. | Redistributing Medicare payments among providers based on outcomes, quality, and risk-adjustment measurements that are not scientifically valid, verifiable, and accurate | ||||
| •. | Medicare payment cuts for all physician services to partially offset the shifting of bonuses from one specialty to another | ||||
| •. | Arbitrary restrictions on physicians who refer Medicare patients to high-quality facilities in which they have an ownership interest | ||||
