MS Speaks
OTHER => NEWS => Topic started by: agate on January 14, 2017, 12:12:50 pm
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President Obama has published an article in the New England Journal of Medicine (January 12, 2017), "Repealing the ACA without a Replacement: The Risks to American Health Care" (http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1616577?rss=mostViewed&query=TOC).
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An editorial in The Lancet (January 14) addresses this opinion piece by President Obama in the NEJM:
Editorial
ACA repeal and the AMA
With inauguration day just a week away, there has been much soul-searching in the USA concerning the future of US health care, as America moves ever closer to at least a partial dismantling of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The outgoing president set out his views last week, reminding US physicians of the ACA's successes, and being upfront about its shortcomings. The president's core message is clear—any form of ACA repeal until an alternative plan is in place is unthinkable.
In a similar vein, a Jan 3 open letter from the head of the American Medical Association (AMA), John Madara, to leaders of Congress, called for the incoming Republican administration to outline new health-care plans “in reasonable detail” before abandoning progress made through the ACA, most notably concerning the fate of millions of Americans who have recently gained coverage through Medicaid expansion or the ACA's insurance exchange markets. Other well known medical institutions have also written to Congress expressing concern.
The position of the AMA, a venerable institution and the largest medical association in the USA, is of particular interest. It has supported the implementation of the ACA, yet last month was also quick to welcome the appointment of the hardline ACA opponent (and AMA member) Tom Price as the incoming head of the Health and Human Services Department. The resultant backlash caused in some quarters—with many physicians signing petitions of protest—was striking, and not unwarranted.
The AMA publishes much detail about its future vision for US health care, along a mainstream perspective as to how this should be delivered, although it falls short of any long-term consideration of a single-payer system to help the USA achieve universal health coverage, however fanciful this concept might seem at the moment. Given the murky health policy environment that we are heading towards, now is an apposite moment for the American medical community—and especially the AMA—to be a proactive and robust voice in helping to define the post-Obama health-care landscape.