Why the AMA Endorses Obamacare—But Your Doctor Does Not | TheBlaze.com: "The answer, as in most cases, involves following the money. There was a time, up until the 1980’s, that the AMA made most of its revenue from physician dues. In those days, presumably, they cared about the issues that negatively affected physicians, and by extension, the practice of medicine and patient care. In 1963, when the AMA was not given equal time to rebut President Kennedy’s Madison Square Garden speech arguing for Medicare, the AMA rented the empty Garden, and then President Dr. Edward Annis made an impassioned televised plea, exhorting Americans to avoid the trap of socialized health care.
Today’s AMA is a different animal. This year, only 15 percent of practicing physicians are members, down from 75 percent in the 1950s. Between 2008 and 2010, membership declined by 5 percent. But, in spite of hemorrhaging members, the organization has done financially better than ever. Between 1987 and 1999, the organization was variably “in the red”, and never reported over $7.6 million in yearly profit, but, beginning in 2000, for twelve consecutive years the organization has consistently operated “in the black.” Reporting record net incomes of $39.8 million in 2005, and most recently $24.7 million profit in 2011.
Now, if this were a restaurant with diminishing customers and record returns, the Feds would investigate the owner– suspecting money laundering or drugs. So what is the AMA’s secret? In the mid 1980’s, the AMA, in a brilliant business move, created a coding system that all doctors and hospitals required to bill the government or private insurance: the CPT codebook. And, as the codification of medicine required more and more paperwork, the AMA was more than happy to step in and supply electronic systems to help both the government and the doctors all at a price, of course."
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