Why the AMA Wants to Muzzle Your Doctor

The American Medical Association (AMA) was an outspoken supporter of the new health care bill, and their endorsement falsely gave the impression that U.S. physicians were 100 percent on board with the plan.

In reality, the AMA represents only 17 percent of U.S. physicians, and now that the health care bill has passed, many of the remaining 83 percent are sharing their discontent with the coming changes. In response, the AMA issued a very carefully worded statement that suggests physicians “should conduct political communications with sensitivity to patients' vulnerability and desire for privacy.”

As Hal Scherz wrote in the Wall Street Journal, many have perceived this statement as an attempt to silence their opinions about health care reform, especially when it comes to sharing those opinions with patients.

Why would the AMA be concerned with U.S. doctors turning on their heralded health care reform? For starters, the majority of their income depends on it.

The AMA is Dependent on the Flawed Medical Paradigm

Giving the government control over health care is a hotly debated topic for good reason. Already many of your personal freedoms are being threatened at the hands of the government, and there is language in this new reform that gives the federal government unprecedented power to meddle in your personal health care affairs.

Further, giving the government increased control over your health care choices does absolutely nothing to address the REAL problems facing the state of health care in the United States.

What’s REALLY needed is a radical change in consciousness about what health and health care really is. As long as your focus is on drugs and surgical interventions, you will never see the fundamental changes that are so desperately needed. It can only be accomplished by a radical change in how you, and how society as a whole, think about health.

The American Medical Association, however, has been instrumental in not only keeping this flawed system running, but in creating it and building it into the massive failure it is today.

Before I delve into their sordid history, let’s start with their present-day contribution: the CPT (Current Procedural Terminology) coding system.

CPT Codes Favor Conventional Medicine

The American Medical Association created and maintains the CPT coding system, which is used by virtually every medical practitioner in the United States that bills private insurance companies or government programs. Each medical service or diagnosis receives its own unique CPT code, which is reported to insurance companies or the federal government, and used to determine how much the practitioner will be reimbursed.

One of the glaring problems with the CPT coding system is that it does not offer codes for many alternative and holistic medical treatments, which means a practitioner cannot bill them through insurance companies or government health programs.

Real change will only occur once natural medicine is embraced and fully allowed to be an officially viable alternative to conventional treatments … but the current health care bill does nothing to address this.

Additionally, the CPT system is copyrighted and controlled by the AMA, which updates the codes annually and requires practitioners to purchase updated software, books and manuals each year as well.

This medical coding system generates income of $70 million to $100 million annually for the AMA, according to the Wall Street Journal, which explains why they are so adamant to maintain the status quo in the health care realm.

They need Americans to continue to rely on health insurance, and they also need physicians to depend on billing them. Without that, the AMA would fall apart at the seams, probably rather quickly.

So a health care bill that mandates health insurance coverage for nearly all Americans is a dream come true for the AMA.

That the AMA was granted this monopoly over government-imposed coding standards -- which every U.S. medical practitioner must use if they want to be reimbursed by insurance companies or government programs -- in the first place is a manifestation of their long-standing monopoly over the medical establishment itself.

The AMA Has Long Supported Drug Companies While Denouncing Natural Medicine

Since the beginning of the 20th century, the people behind the AMA were not there to protect public health, as they were more interested in gaining power. Ironically, at first people didn’t trust this new organization, because in the 19th century most Americans thrived on more natural approaches like homeopathic medicine.

Then, in 1847, along comes the AMA. They wanted control and they wanted money, so what did they do? They kept all homeopathic physicians out of their “club,” and proceeded to call all related remedies “quackery.”

If you didn’t want to pay to join the club and become approved and “certified” by advertising in JAMA, anything you recommended would also be criticized and eventually eliminated.

Note that none of this was based on scientific evidence, or even anecdotal evidence of what was really healthy. It was solely about money. If you could buy your way in, your products and your name would be endorsed, end of story.

Yet, at this time, people were still questioning the allopathic model that the AMA was touting. If you haven’t yet read Medical Control, Medical Corruption by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., please do, as it goes into great detail about the sordid events that followed.

To put it simply, the AMA had extensive control of the medical schools and made it so that only those who graduated from one of them could practice medicine. And since they controlled the schools, guess what was largely taught? How to use prescription drugs.

This medical monopoly is largely responsible for the problems that exist in conventional medicine today, including:

• Heavy ties to the drug industry
• Reliance on drugs, surgery and hospital stays
• No competition, leading to outrageous prices that most Americans cannot afford
• Calling tried-and-true natural remedies and most all non-medical doctors quacks

They say that history repeats itself, and in this case it’s very true. True to their allopathic roots, the AMA is continuing to support the fatally flawed medical paradigm that it essentially created.

We Cannot be Silenced

The AMA may like to think that their statement will make physicians think twice before sharing their thoughts on health care reform, but this physician, for one, will not be silenced … and I’m guessing the majority of you reading this feel the same way.

There are more than 1.5 million people who receive this newsletter. We CAN make a huge difference. If only a small fraction of you spread this message within your little community of family, friends, and coworkers, just imagine what we can accomplish together.

A health care paradigm that focuses on drugs and surgical interventions instead of valuing your body’s innate ability to heal when given proper nutrition and a healthy lifestyle, will ultimately fail you. It’s time we turned our efforts toward the latter, and embraced our ability to take control of our health.