My latest piece for the American Spectator outlines the history and motives behind the AMA’s quisling strategy:
The tragic irony of this cynical strategy is that it will not work. As Vidkun Quisling discovered in October of 1945, the advantages of collaboration are always short-lived. A temporary reprieve from Medicare payment cuts is all Dr. Rohack will have gained by delivering his patients and colleagues into the hands of Washington’s health care bureaucrats … Once the President has finished using them for political cover, the AMA and the rest of the “stakeholders” will be abandoned to the depredations of bureaucrats and the revenge of an angry public. This is the inevitable fate of all quislings.
Read the entire article here.
Comments 2
Excellent piece! Also, most physicians are not members of the AMA. According to some stories, less than 30% of practicing US physicians are members.
Hence, when news stories or politicians cite AMA support of a policy as evidence that “American doctors support X”, they’re either ignorant, engaging in a logical fallacy, or worse.
Posted 22 Oct 2009 at 11:42 am ¶Sadly, it’s hard to escape the impression that “or worse” is the problem.
Posted 22 Oct 2009 at 1:48 pm ¶Post a Comment