Thursday, July 16, 2009

Krugman on the AMA

This is funny. Sadly it points out the nasty fight the AMA has put up against any kind of better health care for Americans. But it is funny because -- looking back -- it is all so bizarre:
The AMA — as good guys????

If you know anything about the history of health care in America, you know that the American Medical Association has played a consistently nefarious role. It helped block Truman’s plan for national health insurance, in alliance with Southern politicians who feared that a national system would force them to integrate hospitals. It sponsored Operation Coffee Cup, in which doctors’ wives were encouraged to rally their friends against Medicare — with the help of a recorded message from Ronald Reagan.

But now the AMA has endorsed the House health reform bill.

Now, the WSJ has just warned that the pharma and insurance lobbies, babes in the woods that they are, are being snookered by the health reformers. (Let nobody say that the Journal lacks sympathy for innocent victims!) Has the same thing just happened to the AMA?

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