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EMR >> Organizations
The Delicate Dance Of EHR Government And The Market.
AMA - American Medical Association
Electronic Medical Records
AMA
The American Medical
Association (AMA) is the largest association of
medical doctors in the United States. Its purpose is to
advance the interests of physicians, to promote public
health, to lobby for medical legislation, and to raise money
for medical education. The AMA also publishes the Journal of
the American Medical Association (JAMA) and runs the Stop
America's Violence Everywhere, or SAVE, program.
The AMA Foundation provides
approximately $1,000,000 annually in tuition assistance to
financially constrained students (who now graduate medical
school with an average debt load of well over $100,000
each). It funds awareness projects about health literacy. It
supports research funding for students and fellows around
the US. It provides grants to community projects designed to
encourage healthy lifestyles (of diet and exercise, good
sleep habits, etc.) The Worldscopes program has a goal of
providing over 100,000 stethoscopes to third world
countries, donated from physicians and students.
For much of the twentieth century, the AMA opposed publicly
funded medicine. When the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act was passed
in the U.S., the AMA protested the law soon after, both on
the grounds of actual disagreement with the law and the
supporters' lies on the subject. Harry J. Anslinger (Bureau
of Narcotics Commissioner) and others had claimed the AMA
had vocalized support when, in fact, the opposite was true.
In the 1930s, it attempted to prohibit its members from
working for the primitive health maintenance organizations
that had sprung up during the Great Depression. The AMA's
subsequent conviction for violating the Sherman Antitrust
Act was affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court. American Medical
Ass'n. v. United States, 317 U.S. 519 (1943).
The AMA's vehement campaign
against Medicare in the 1950s and 1960s included the
Operation Coffee Cup supported by Ronald Reagan. Since the
enactment of Medicare, the AMA has stated that it "continues
to oppose attempts to cut Medicare funding or shift
increased costs to beneficiaries at the expense of the
quality or accessibility of care" and "strongly supports
subsidization of prescription drugs for Medicare patients
based on means testing". The AMA also campaigns to raise
Medicare payments to physicians, arguing that increases will
protect seniors' access to health care. In the 1990s it was
part of the coalition that defeated the health care reform
proposed by President Bill Clinton.
The AMA has given high priority to supporting changes in
medical malpractice law to limit damage awards, which, it
contends, contribute inability of patients to find
appropriate medical care. In many states, high risk
specialists have moved to other states with such limits. For
example, in 2004 not a single neurosurgeon remained in the
entire southern half of Illinois. The main legislative
emphasis in multiple states has been to effect caps on the
amount that patients can receive for pain and suffering.
These costs for pain and suffering are only those that
exceed the actual costs of healthcare and lost income.
Multiple states have found that limiting these costs have
actually dramatically slowed increases in the costs of
medical malpractice insurance. Texas, having recently
enacted such reforms has reported that all major malpractice
insurers in 2005 were able to offer either no increase or a
decrease in premiums to physicians.
Another top priority of the AMA is
to lobby for change to the federal tax codes to allow the
current health insurance system (based on employment) to be
purchased by individuals. Such changes could possibly allow
millions of currently uninsured Americans to be able to
afford insurance through a series of refundable tax credits
based on income (ie: the lower your income, the greater your
credit).
Source: Wikipedia contributors (2006). American Medical
Association. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved
21:59, January 15, 2006 from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=American_Medical_Association&oldid=34127849.
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