Our Dead American Medical Association

[MachineGhost]

Dr. Annis predicted the top-down government controls; the rules and regulations; the giant bureaucracy, and even the fiscal insolvency that looms large today. But the train left the station in 1965 with the passage of Medicare, and in 1983, the AMA jumped on board - for money and the promise of control.

The government was looking for a way to standardize medical billing for Medicare, and the AMA had just the thing. We call it Current Procedural Terminology. The AMA owns it, and the organization signed an exclusive agreement with the government in 1983 that made it the coding system for all Medicare billing.

Gradually, the terminology became the standard for all medical billing - private insurance and government plans. The AMA has a government-granted monopoly, and it enjoys a lucrative stream of income as a result.

It is estimated that the AMA takes in between $50 million and $80 million per year from licensing fees and the sale of coding books, materials and other related products. This income dwarfs the amount generated from dues-paying physician members. See the problem? The AMA is a corporation in the business of selling and protecting its Current Procedural Terminology income stream, not its doctor members. The emperor truly has no clothes, and America’s working physicians have no effective representation to counter the massive power of the federal government and the new Affordable Care Law, which will control the entire health care economy by 2014.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/201 ... sociation/

[Pointedstick]

Between $50 and $80 million? That's all? Sounds like the AMA is really bad at being a monopoly, too. Is there anything they're good at?

[WiseOne]

Slightly off topic but....

http://grantdynamo.com/get-the-explorer ... 6d8197c126

You may only want to watch the beginning of this video, which contains some startling information about how medical research is becoming almost completely swallowed up by the constant need to write grants.  Every word of it is true.  The speaker is a biomedical researcher who has branched off into teaching courses and blogging about grantwriting.

[stone]

WiseOne, I guess the waste of time is even more severe amongst the people having to review the mountain of grant amplications.  I've wondered whether the only way out of that "grant dynamo" bind would be if everyone was given a citizens dividend simply for being a citizen. Then everyone who liked doing biomedical research could do so just as other people could do art, sport, child/elder care, start up seemingly unfeasible commercial ventures etc. We would do what we personally considered was the best use of our own time. To be rich we would have to spend our time doing stuff that other people chose to pay us for but to simply survive we would have total financial/academic freedom.

[TripleB]

WiseOne, I guess the waste of time is even more severe amongst the people having to review the mountain of grant amplications.  I've wondered whether the only way out of that "grant dynamo" bind would be if everyone was given a citizens dividend simply for being a citizen. Then everyone who liked doing biomedical research could do so just as other people could do art, sport, child/elder care, start up seemingly unfeasible commercial ventures etc. We would do what we personally considered was the best use of our own time. To be rich we would have to spend our time doing stuff that other people chose to pay us for but to simply survive we would have total financial/academic freedom.

That sounds awesome. Who's going to pay for the citizen's dividend?