AMA wants lower med school costs, student debt
In the American Medical Association’s American Medical News, Amy Lynn Sorrel reports on resolutions from the AMA’s annual meeting calling for an increase in medical school funding through scholarships and loans and for the use of other “innovative” debt-reduction programs.
According to Sorrel, students are leaving medical school with debt loads that sometimes top $200,000, burdens which some sources said push students away from longer residencies or lower-paying, underserved specializations and locations.
Delegates at the 2009 meeting called for innovative new measures, including “shortening the length of training for combined residency or dual-degree programs, easing loan repayment obligations and ensuring equitable tuition increases.”
Obama’s AMA talk streamed live
CNN will live stream President Obama’s speech to the American Medical Association at 12:15 p.m. ET. To see it, visit the CNN site, then click “live video” and then select the video labeled “Obama speaks to American Medical Assoc.”
Update: Full text of Obama’s speech to the AMA
Earlier: Obama adds AMA to health-care tour
Obama adds AMA to health-care tour
Next week President Obama will become the first commander in chief to speak directly to the doctors of the American Medical Association since Ronald Reagan in 1983.
Obama will speak to the AMA.
The AMA had more members and a lot more clout in Reagan’s day. Despite the rise of specialty medical societies, the AMA remains the most powerful trade group for doctors. So Obama will take his health-reform roadshow to the AMA’s 158th annual meeting in Chicago on Monday.
What’s he going to say? Well, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters yesterday that Obama will tell the doctors that the current health care system is “unsustainable” and that reform needs to happen now. Obama is expected to explain what his plan for health care will mean for patients and their doctors. That last bit could prove particularly interesting.
The AMA has pledged publicly to support Obama’s plan by reducing wasteful medical procedures, such as unnecessary surgery for back pain and many Cesarean sections. But behind the scenes, the AMA has been fighting against a government-provided insurance option supported by Obama for universal coverage.
As AHCJ president Trudy Lieberman asked in a recent blog post, “Is this the same old AMA opposing anything that even remotely looks, smells, or quacks like an entrée to national health insurance?” Journalists, she wrote, “should make it their business to find out.”
Update
In response to a New York Times story on AMA’s opposition to a public plan, AMA President Nancy H. Nielsen said in a statement that the group would consider “variations of a public plan that are currently under discussion in Congress.”
CJR: Unmask AMA’s push to steer reform, please
Filed under: Health care reform, Health journalism, Hot Health Headline
In the Columbia Journalism Review, Trudy Lieberman, president of AHCJ’s board of directors, notes that the mighty American Medical Association has started to throw its weight around in the reform arena and, to protect revenues, seems to be siding with the big insurers and pharmaceutical companies. It has been pushing for a universal coverage mandate without publicly funded options — at stance that looks mighty similar to those of its less popular allies. So far, though, the AMA has dodged the majority of the blame. Lieberman calls upon health care journalists to dig deeper into the AMA’s reform involvement and help publicize its role in the process.
-
Spend a week at the CDC studying public health, meeting sources. Apply for the AHCJ-CDC Health Journalism Fellowships today!
- Reporting on the intersection of health, environment
- Tip sheet: Covering cuts to Medicare reimbursements
- Briefing: Reporting on health reform between now and 2014
- Covering high-risk insurance pools: Tips for reporters
- Health care reform has passed: What's next?
- Health and education: Covering these intersecting beats
- Reporting on the business of health care
- Health reporting resources for journalists on state and local government beats
