The other really interesting story this weekend is about a courageous group of docs (see www.PhysiciansAgainstObamacare.org) who are loosely associated as the National Doctors Tea Party.
If you see the FOX interview with Physicians Against Obamacare founder and National Doctors Tea Party President, Doctor Adam Dorin,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtCQDmVIcZA, then you’ll get part of the picture of an emerging debate. On Doctor Dorin’s site, he challenges the AMA to give up the ‘copyright’ monopoly it has on the billing codes necessary for docs to bill insurance companies.
This is shaping up to be one of the hottest issues underpinning Obamacare—the disingenuous way in which the legislation was ‘sold’ to the public despite the AMA’s membership numbers of (at best) somewhere between 10 and 17%.
The Challenge to the AMA: “Give U.S. the Codes” used to bill for insurance that nets the AMA between 70 and 100 million dollars annually—the largest single segment of its income stream.
As per www.PhysiciansAgainstObamacare.org:
CHALLENGE TO THE AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION
“Release the medical billing code copyright monopoly and assign the codes to the ‘public domain’ in an Internet-based ‘freeware’ system. This would save American docs 70 to 100 million dollars annually and would go a long way toward the spirit of cost-savings in the healthcare system. Without the unfair coding monopoly, the AMA can then compete fairly, on a level playing field, with other medical groups for the membership it so desperately lacks”
Most doctors and most Americans, by all polling over the past year, are not in favor of the Obamacare law. Doctor Dorin and many other physician leaders are fighting to defund and repeal this legislation so that a better healthcare reform product can be created.
Patrick Toomey