An American Medical Society vote to continue a policy supporting individual responsibility for health insurance and assistance for those who cannot afford it, drew immediate opposition from the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS).
"The AMA's policy supporting individual responsibility has bipartisan roots, helps Americans get the care they need when they need it and ends cost shifting from those who are uninsured to those who are insured," said AMA President Cecil B. Wilson, MD. "Important insurance market reforms, such as an end to coverage denials based on pre-existing conditions, are only possible by having broad participation in the health insurance market."
[See also: Clarifying the Individual Mandate Alternative; Virginia federal judge rules health reform law unconstitutional]
But the 326-165 vote by AMA members, at its annual meeting here, came under fire from the AAPS, noting that individual responsibility is nothing more than an insurance mandate that strips individual states of their rights to decide whether or not to enforce the requirement that everyone have health insurance.
"The AMA has turned 180 degrees since the 1950s, when it held that 'the voluntary way is the American way,'" said Jane Orient, MD, executive director of AAPS. "Now it has adopted the 'progressive' left-wing stance of calling for compulsory purchase of government-prescribed insurance."
The AMA noted it reviewed alternatives to individual responsibility and determined that "any approach to covering the uninsured that is in line with AMA policy cannot be fully successful in covering the uninsured without individual responsibility for health insurance," according to a press release announcing the voting results.
In addition to its support of individual responsibility, the AMA House of Delegates, comprising physicians representing all state and medical specialty societies, also reaffirmed support for AMA policy supporting health insurance tax credits and health insurance market regulation, health savings accounts, and direct subsidies for the coverage of high risk patients.
But the AAPS contends these measures infringe on individuals' rights to choose how they pay for their healthcare.
"As AAPS has pointed out in pending litigation, PPACA itself created the problem that the individual mandate is supposed to solve," AAPS contended. "By forcing insurers to accept all comers at a fixed rate, PPACA shields individuals from having to take responsibility for the consequences of not buying insurance until they expect to make claims on it."