President Obama spoke for nearly an hour this afternoon at the AMA House of Delegates, and his message was simple. "I need your help," he said. "For most Americans, you are our health care system. We listen to you. We trust you."
Obama also spoke directly about the controversial public health plan proposal, about which the AMA has expressed some reservations. "The public health plan is not your enemy. It is your friend," he said. Obama added that the public health plan option is not a "trojan horse" for the introduction of a single, government run health care system in America, though he notes it "may be working" in some countries.
Obama said many things that drew generous applause from the assembled room.
- His plan "allows you to be physicians, instead of administrators and accountants."
- "You did not enter this profession to be bean-counters and paper-pushers. You entered this profession to be healers – and that's what our health care system should let you be."
- His plan would ban the denial of insurance coverage for pre-existing conditions. "The days of cherry-picking are over."
- He would generously fund a national health service corps to increase the number of primary care physicians because "so many of you are drowning in debt."
Obama also spoke of the medical liability system, which initially provoked almost a giddy response from the audience. That reaction prompted him to say, "Don't get too excited yet." Obama continued that while he doesn't support caps on malpractice awards (prompting a low murmur from the crowd), he supports "scaling back the excessive defensive medicine that increases costs." He did not provide details of this approach.
Following the speech, MMS President Mario Motta M.D., said, "The President's speech hit on all the major points that the MMS has been making about health care reform. Clearly, something must be done about health care costs. At the same time, a reform package must restore the ability of physicians to provide timely, high-quality care to their patients. This would be achieved by promoting and rewarding evidence-based medicine, reducing administrative burdens and the incentives for costly defensive medicine. A reform package must also promote the development of a robust primary care workforce, and encourage preventive care and healthy lifestyles. This is a vision that physicians and patients everywhere can unite under."
Watch the complete speech here, courtesy of msnbc.com.
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