American Medical Association

The American Medical Association (AMA) is the largest association of doctors in the United States. The goals of AMA include promoting better public health, helping sound medical legislation be passed, and raising money for medical education. The AMA runs the SAVE program, which stands for Stop America's Violence Everywhere. The AMA also publishes the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), a prestigious medical journal, and provides several valuable online resources.

The AMA has historically been a conservative organization. In the past, it has opposed public health insurance. Recently, it has supported the GOP on medical malpractice reform. However, it has sided with the Democrats on their efforts to establish stronger patient's rights legislation and expand Medicare payments.

AMA's Limit and High Health Insurance

The AMA controls the number of doctors that can legally practice medicine in the U.S. The number limit of new doctors per year is set by the AMA. If there are more doctors than the limit number, who want to start practicing medicine, they cannot do so legally, even if they fill all requirements to be a doctor, such as the 8 years of medical school required. This purpose of this limit is quality control.

Many criticize the AMA's limit, because it causes a shortage of doctors. The U.S.has too many patients, and not enought doctors, consequently. The result is higher doctor's bills, higher health insurance prices, less competition among doctors, less jobs in the medical profession, qualified doctors punished for practicing medicine, wealthy doctors (half of all doctors in the U.S. are millionaires), and crowded county hospitals with med school students working on patients. The answer to these problems, they say, is an elimination of the AMA's limit. It is argued that the AMA has too much power over American doctors and patients, and should relinquish this old fashioned power. Other countries have no such controlling organization, and consequently more doctors, and cheaper and higher quality medicine than the U.S.

Many feel that the AMA is driving the U.S. towards public health insurance, because private health insurance prices are too high. Half of U.S. citizens have no health insurance, because they can't afford it. Thousands of patients die each year because they can't afford the medical bill for life-saving surgery, early detection tests, check-ups, diagnosis, medicine, therapy, and other healing treatments. Many people are desperate enough to vote for Democrat candidates that will pass Universal Medicine (Socialized Medicine) into law. This results in higher taxes to pay for the high cost of Socialized Medicine. It would also make the Federal government larger and more powerful with less personal freedoms, and cause the U.S. government to drift towards a Socialist system, leaving Capitalism behind. The AMA and most U.S. citizens prefer cheap private Health Insurance over Socialism. Proponents agree that eliminating the AMA annual limit will cause Health Insurance prices to lower drastically as the number of doctors will double or more, preventing the need to swicth to a Socialized Medicine system.