CHICAGO – The American Medical Association’s House of Delegates passed a resolution on June 21 to "vigorously" work to change the Affordable Care Act so that the law better lines up with the organization’s policies.
The resolution that passed by a voice vote specifically addressed the need to repeal the Independent Payment Advisory Board and enact comprehensive medical liability reform and antitrust reform. Delegates such as Dr. Bruce Scott of the Kentucky delegation said that this is an effort to prove a point to the AMA members who have left the organization.
"I think that this will begin to satisfy some of the unhappy physicians back home who believe, mistakenly, that the AMA embraced wholeheartedly the [Affordable Care Act] legislation," Dr. Scott said from the house floor.
Alabama delegate Dr. Jeff Terry agreed. "I think some of us feel like perhaps some of the decisions that we’ve made through [the AMA’s] government relations [department] don’t go along with our policy, and I’d like to make an effort to try to make sure our AMA policy is what moves forward on the ACA as we attempt to change it," he said on the house floor.
Block granting in the Medicaid program also was addressed by the House of Delegates. A resolution proposed by the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended that the AMA strongly oppose block granting the Medicaid program.
Dr. Melissa Garretson, a member of the AAP delegation, spoke on the need to maintain the federal/state partnership under Medicaid so that recipients can be ensured of basic benefits no matter where in the United States they live.
"Right now, what this language says is that the state gets to decide," said Dr. Garretson of Fort Worth, Tex. "Well, I live in that state where they could give a you-know-what about the 1.1 million uninsured kids and they don’t want to do anything with Medicaid. That’s just not where they are."
Dr. Marion Burton, also an AAP delegate, agreed. "For the AMA to go on record as supporting block grants would cause millions of children to be thrown under the uninsured bus," he said.
The resolution was referred to the board of trustees for a later decision.