Bigger house tackles Annual Meeting

An expanded delegation to the AMA's June session is expected to confront the state of managed care and the uninsured.

By Bonnie Booth, amednews staff. April 3, 2000.

Access to care for the country's more than 44 million uninsured and the status of for-profit HMOs are two of the topics that physicians could debate extensively at the Annual Meeting of the AMA's House of Delegates in June in Chicago.

And House Speaker Richard F. Corlin, MD, said he expects that the recent public woes of Aetna U.S. Healthcare could prompt delegates to enter the fray.

"As we approach the endgame of managed care organizations as we know them, we may see a spate of resolutions dealing with that issue," Dr. Corlin said.

"It is clear that for-profit HMOs are having a problem justifying their existence in a country with 40-some million uninsured."

Some health care delivery companies don't add value to the system anymore, he said. "Instead, they are taking money that is paid for health care for workers, and diverting it to stock options for senior management."

Dr. Corlin said he expected delegates to want to take more of a role in making access to health care a higher priority on the nation's agenda.

The House of Delegates will convene at 9 a.m. on Sunday, June 11, in the International Ballroom at the Chicago Hilton and Towers.

A total of 340 delegates from 50 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico will attend this year's meeting. They will be joined by 199 delegates representing national medical specialty societies.

Also participating will be representatives from the AMA's Resident and Fellow Section, Medical Student Section, Section on Medical Schools, Organized Medical Staff Section and International Medical Graduates Section.

Representatives of the Medical Corps of the Army, Navy and Air Force; the Public Health Service; and the Dept. of Veterans Affairs also will join the House of Medicine -- which will be significantly larger this year than in years past.

Under an AMA bylaws change, specialty societies now have two delegates per every 1,000 AMA members. That will significantly boost the representation for several specialty societies, including the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the American College of Physicians--American Society of Internal Medicine. And it will add more than 50 delegates to the house, although some say it's already unwieldy.

Dr. Corlin said he had not added more time to reference committees or full house sessions to accommodate the additional delegates. Instead, he is urging delegates and organizations submitting resolutions to utilize the Annual Meeting Web site to avoid submitting duplicate resolutions, which will keep the business manageable.

"It is increasingly important that as delegates or delegations put forth resolutions they check to see what resolutions are posted and whether their purpose could be just as well served by signing on as co-authors of a resolution," he said.

Meeting info

Registration facilities in the lobby level of the Hilton will be open from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. each day from Friday, June 9, to the close of the meeting at noon on Thursday, June 15.