Dr. James Rohack, a Texas Cardiologist and newly appointed President of the AMA was interviewed on CNN earlier today. Rohack's verbal two-step left CNN erroneously reporting that the AMA had changed its stance on a Public Option.
It has NOT,
and if you listen closely to Rohack, he studiously avoids using the word "Public" in response to his questioners or in his own description of the AMA's "new"(not) position.
Having expected something new to report, even CNN's talking head physician expert can't cut through Dr. Rohack's bullshit and poor Tony the CNN Anchor has all but given up. You can smell the burning rubber steaming out of your computer. That's because the AMA's new position is the same as their old position. The only thing "new" is the face of the Anti-Healthcare Reform lobby's messenger boy.
I am no expert on this policy, so please correct me if I'm wrong (or feel free to support me if I'm correct). Rohack is referring to the Federal Employee Health Benefit Program which I believe is a Federally regulated program run by private managed competitors and not a Federally managed "Public" program.
It appears the AMA has neither changed nor softened their hardline stance against the President and American citizens struggling to be insured... or stay insured. Rohack is basically offering us what we have - a system most of us can't afford anyway but with some Federal caps on how much the private insurers can screw people in any one calendar year.
In other words, "We can all eat cake if we can afford it!"
Now that's change we can die from!
Rohack is talking about either the adapting same exact system Congress gets for free or something akin to that system - on this point, I'm confused, too. But of course, whatever he's suggesting, we won't get it for free. At least I don't believe the AMA's position is quite that generous.
If this is truly the depth of their ethical concern, It's no wonder that only 15% of practicing physicians (AMA's 2005 statistics) are not ashamed to still be card-carrying members of Country Club known as the AMA - and I'll bet most of those 15% are Republican voters and contributors.
Like the Repugs they support, the AMA seems content on maintaining the status quo. It's always been easy to "Red Line" the middle class, the infirm and the dying out of affordable healthcare. Those are the folks without the resources, knowledge and/or energy to fight back.
It's a tactic that has worked for the AMA and their Insurance and Pharma accomplices for over 60 years.
So again I ask...
Is it just me?
Am I missing something here,
or is this guy "Dr. Feelgood, Snake Oil Salesman?"
Only the players seem to change.
The game stays nauseatingly constant.
In the game of Monopoly, the player with hotels on Boardwalk and Park Place usually wins it all.
It seems the game of Affordable Universal Healthcare works much the same way.
The Healthcare lobby has insidiously placed their "hotels" on top of the House of Representatives and Senate. For the rest of us, our survival days are numbered, and thanks to a criminally run healthcare system, more and more of us won't be passing "Go" each year.
On a personal note: I've always distrusted people like Doc Feelgood here who show the white of their eyes betwen their beady pupils and lower eyelids (as if they're staring into your forehead instead of your eyes). But that's just my own prejudice...right?