So, the American Medical Association (AMA) is opposed to anything that will reduce doctor income. Why is that a surprise? Much of the increase in medical costs is because doctors branched off from just seeing patients to also having part ownership in things like scanners and test labs and relying on commission income from hospitals. Doctors don't want to be just salaried, highly-paid professionals even if the overmedication caused by poorly aligned incentivies actively harms patients. Hippocratic oath be damned.
The AMA has always been against anything that will reduce doctors' fees, even if the alternative was people going untreated or patients being killed by overmedication. The AMA has been against every health care reform proposal -- from FDR's and Truman's to Hillary Clinton's. They were even against Medicare, but fortunately (as opposed to the other times), they were not successful. Hope that this time, too, they are unsuccessful in their effort to block a public insurance plan.
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