Big Medicine and the American Medical Association

Can you name the Big Medicine organization that wants to control your health care decisions from the time you are born to the time you die (and everything in between) and is not part of the Federal Government? If your answer is the American Medical Association (AMA) you would be correct! Yet your personal physician probably has little, if any part, in this devious plot and probably has no idea that it is going on.

The AMA, which was formed in 1847, is often thought as a benevolent organization whose primary focus is the protection of the public’s health. But this altruistic side of the AMA often masks its darker ambition: control of the healthcare system at all costs.

 The Real Goal of the AMA

Don’t believe me! Go to the AMA website and look up the litigation issues under the physician resource tab and you’ll see a list of all of the lawsuits going on with support of the AMA. To expand their stated goal of “protecting the public interest” they have no fewer than twelve lawsuits regarding the “scope of practice” for providers other than physicians or physician assistants.

For example, in Colorado they are trying to restrict certified nurse anesthetists from administering anesthesia with physician supervision. The definition of supervision does not necessarily mean that a physician will be there on site however.

In Colorado, they are supporting the right of physician assistants to perform needle electromyographies (EMGs), diagnostic tests for muscle disorders. “The AMA believes that health care professionals should provide patient care in accordance with their level of education and training and in accordance with applicable state laws.” However, in the State of Texas they are suing the Texas Chiropractic Board to prevent chiropractic doctors from performing these same tests even though the education of a chiropractor is more extensive than that of a physician assistant.

The AMA is also suing the Texas Board to prevent doctors of chiropractic from performing manipulation under anesthesia. In questioning numerous medical doctors personally I was surprised that only one medical doctor was aware of this and he learned about it from a false rumor that chiropractors were performing the anesthesia. Nothing could be further from the truth. One of the arguments given was that chiropractors cannot perform surgery and hence cannot perform manipulation under anesthesia because it is listed as a “surgical code”. Where is it listed as a surgical code? It is in the Current Procedure Terminology (CPT) books. Who writes and controls the CPT: you guessed it, the AMA. Manipulation under anesthesia is as much surgery as it is when you pop your knuckle (manipulation) after applying ice (anesthesia) to the joint.

And what about the idea that this altruistic organization needs to protect the public’s safety? In 1997, USA today reported that, “there are 119,000 prescription related deaths every year and 28% of hospital admissions are caused by side-effects from medical treatment”. In 1995, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) estimated that there were 180,000 deaths caused by adverse injury resulting from medical treatment”.

If you google the words “iatrogenic deaths (death caused by a physician)” you will come across a table that purports that the number of deaths caused by medical errors, adverse drug reactions, surgery, and unnecessary procedures to be closer to 273,136 people per year in the United States alone. These numbers alone make it the third leading cause of death in the United States after only cancer and cardiovascular problems and well ahead of automobile accidents, which is in the fourth position at 45,000 deaths per year.

Yet the AMA and its state branches decry to every politician that will listen that they only have the interest of public safety at heart. Perhaps they need to look in the mirror, remove their masks, and decide what to do about the real problem in healthcare today. Do we need to remind people about the story of the fox guarding the henhouse?

Is the AMA Protecting You - or Its Members?

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