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Former AMA President Speaks Out Against Government Controlled Healthcare, Nov. 12, 2009

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

When I speak at press conferences, on radio interviews, and in TV
interviews and debates, I am saying the same things I said when I was
AMA president:  medical liability reform, expanding health insurance
with tax credits, individual ownership, encouraging medical savings
accounts, market enhancements such as allowing health insurance to be
bought across state lines to enhance competition (and this was
published in JAMA in 2004), the right to privately contract with
patients without penalty and no further expansion of  government in
the practice of medicine.  This is what I presented in oral testimony
in 1976 before the Ways and Means Health Subcommittee Field hearing in
New Orleans on behalf of the Orleans Parish Medical Society.  I
recently put that reference and excepts of the testimony into a speech
I gave at the American Enterprise Institute.  I am not opposed to
health system reform.  I am in favor of it.  I am opposed to bad
health system reform.

So my statements are not some new position I dreamed up for some other
purpose.  By the way, the Coalition of state and specialty societies
representing over 50,000 physicians and who testified at the AMA
Interim meeting in Houston this week are saying the same thing.

So if I drop dead tomorrow, the message carries on.  It is not a
message that started with me but rather from the minds of dedicated
physicians who toiled for years rendering compassionate ethical
science-based care to their patients, frequently under adverse
conditions.  I am privileged to have spent over 35 years in the
practice of surgery including a tour of duty in the U.S Air Force as
Chief of Surgery at a SAC base rending care to pilots rotating back
from Vietnam during that war.  I am proud of rending care to all over
the years regardless of social status, wealth, or insurance.  I feel
good about that and will continue to do my part to preserve medicine.

One more thing.  With the recent rush to push the bill through
Congress and the possibility that it could pass with the disaster
wording contained in the lengthly bills, I am now dedicated to losing
the 50 pounds my doctor instructed me to do for I fear the
unavailability of specialists in the years ahead.  Already lost 10
pounds.  I have given up Hershey Kisses and increased my walking to 3
miles a day!  That should increase the weight loss and decrease the
risk of needing a specialist.

The press and the folks in Congress continue to say AMA endorses
H.R. 3962 despite the clarification by the current AMA President that AMA supports
this bill with reservations and AMA will work to make the changes needed.  How
about a press release from our AMA stating that to the press in clear
and unmistakeable Struck and White English of Elements of Style?  If
not, why not?  A lot of political mileage is gained from the
perception of AMA alleged endorsement by those rushing the bills
through Congress.


Stay well,
Donald


Donald J. Palmisano, MD, JD
  
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