Reason Writers Around Town: Shikha Dalmia on the Real "Evil-Mongers" in the Health Care Debate
In her latest Forbes column, Shikha Dalmia takes on one of the true villains in the health care debate: the American Medical Association. As Dalmia writes:
The entities that will be most injurious to the nation's health are not so much in the evil-mongers' group but the first group, including the American Medical Association—a doctors' cartel that has controlled the medical labor market in the U.S. like its personal fiefdom for a century. Instead of "palling around" with it, President Obama should do everything in his power to break its choke-hold and bring physician salaries—among the biggest drivers of health care costs–back down to Earth….
The association has managed so far to escape the wrath of MoveOn.org and other Democratic apparatchiks by muting its opposition to their beloved public option—the proposed government-run health care plan—and joining a coalition of industry groups pledging to cut $80 billion in health care costs over the next decade. The president has been touting these savings as if they have been signed, sealed and delivered to the bank. But anyone who buys—even for a nano-second—that anything good can come for taxpayers or patients from an alliance between Big Government and Big Medicine should see a doctor.
The fact of the matter is that even if the AMA delivered its share of these "savings," it wouldn't begin to make up for the costs it imposes on the country—both in lost dollars and poorer patient care….
