AMA sources confirm a resolution that would effectively revoke the AMA's endorsement will be introduced during the delegates' conference at the association's interim meeting in Houston on Saturday.
The resolution reportedly will oppose the public option, and call for measures to protect doctors and hospitals from malpractice suits.
The AMA has 180 member organizations, including state medical associations, as well as specialty groups such as the American Academy of Family Physicians and the American College of Surgeons.
Dolan suggests the AMA has underestimated the scope of the division over healthcare.
"Talking to our guys who are up there," Dolan tells Newsmax, "and talking to delegates in others states, and to specialty societies that signed on, I suspect that vote will be to rescind."
According to Dolan, the AMA board issued a similar endorsement in July without delegate approval, when it declared AMA support for the earlier House version of the bill.
After that endorsement, 10,000 physicians logged onto Sermo.com, an online physicians' community, to voice their opinions. According to the Sermo Web site, of the doctors who responded, "94 percent do not support the bill, and 95 percent state that the AMA does not speak for them with its endorsement."
At least seven state-level medical organizations, most in the South and Midwest, have expressed unhappiness at not being consulted prior to the AMA endorsement.
Many doctors say healthcare reform adds to already-burdensome paperwork requirements, while failing to implement the tort reforms needed to reduce liability premiums and reduce spiraling medical costs. They add that Obamacare won't eliminate the unnecessary procedures that doctors feel they must perform merely to minimize the chances of malpractice litigation – the practice of so-called "defensive medicine."
Dolan speculates that AMA executives may have felt there wasn't enough time to seek delegates' approval, given Democratic efforts to push the bill to a vote as early as this weekend. Dolan doesn't consider the short lead time a valid excuse, however.
"I polled our [state] board of governors this morning in about four hours by e-mail, to get their reaction whether we should sign on or not [to the resolution to rescind]," he says. "So in the day of blackberries and iPhones, doing a quick straw vote doesn't take much.
Dolan says the sentiment among his Florida Medical Association board members was "very strong" for revoking the AMA endorsement.
It wouldn't mark the first time the AMA had been tripped up by the healthcare debate. The organization suffered an embarrassing defeat in the Senate two weeks ago when it was unable to deliver enough Republican votes to pass a $247 billion reprieve from cuts in Medicare reimbursements to physicians.
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The American Medical Association’s decision to endorse the House reform bill before its members had a chance to weigh in has dissenting factions threatening a “showdown” this weekend.
Opponents of the group’s endorsement are planning to introduce multiple resolutions to rescind or amend the AMA’s nod, according to an official whose doctor group opposes today’s endorsement.
“All is not happy in Denmark. There is a split within the ranks of the physician community,” the official said. “Clearly, the AMA does not represent the views of all physicians.”
In fact, the American Association of Neurological Surgeons and the Congress of
Neurological Surgeons announced their opposition to the House bill today.
“Sadly, in the ongoing health care reform debate, the more things change, the more they stay the same. We could not support H.R. 3200, the ‘America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009,’ which was introduced in the House last July and unfortunately, we must now oppose this new House bill too. It contains no significant changes or improvements when it comes to the issues we believe are vital for true health care reform in this country,” said AANS president Troy Tippett.
Some AMA members are upset that the association plowed forward with an endorsement ahead of their meeting this weekend in Houston. Also grumbling about the AMA’s endorsement are state medical associations in Ohio, Illinois, Texas, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and Florida, the official said.
Former AMA president Stormy Johnson is preparing a resolution to rescind the endorsement, sources said. And the surgeons are introducing a resolution that would call on the AMA to actively oppose any legislation that includes a public option or a temporary doc fix or that doesn’t include medical malpractice reform.
And the official scoffed at AMA president James Rohack's attempt to differentiate between supporting a bill and endorsing one saying that in Washington, they mean the same thing.
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