Obama urges doctors to back health care plan proposal
CHICAGO -- President Obama faces a skeptical audience Monday when he speaks to the American Medical Association about his proposal to create a government-run health plan to cut costs and increase competition.
The AMA does not support the proposal, and some of its members said it could make the nation's health care system worse.
"Physicians are burdened right now with a lot of rules and regulations in dealing with patients where their reimbursement is subsidized by the federal government, and I guess we're not very confident that the government's going to be able to take over the whole system and do any better," said J. Gregory Cooper, a family doctor in Cynthiana, Ky.
It's clear that the current system is flawed, said Jerry Halverson, a psychiatrist from Madison, Wis., but "whether it needs a complete reboot is a different question."
"There's a lot of concern" about the federal government managing health care, he said. "If the model is Medicare, that's not a model that's worked, and we know it's not a model that's worked," Halverson says.
Obama says the health care overhaul can't wait another year and is "the single most important thing we can do for America's long-term fiscal health," according to a speech summary e-mailed this morning by administration officials.
The summary said the president planned to discuss ways to reduce health care costs and argue that the changes will cost money in the short-term but produce savings down the line.
"He'll reiterate his proposals to generate $950 billion in revenue and savings to pay for reform," the summary said.
Obama will ask doctors to help him deal with the system's biggest problem, rising costs, the summary said.
The president plans to thank the AMA for supporting the overhaul. The summary doesn't say whether he plans to address the organization's concerns about a public insurance option, though that issue will be discussed as a way to help cover the 46 million Americans who lack coverage.
The idea is "a health insurance exchange where private plans compete with a public option that drives down costs and expands choice," the White House said. "The president will be clear about what a public option does and doesn't mean for patients, physicians and our broader health care system."
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