AMA's advocacy agenda: Driven by physicians

The AMA, with the input of its members, has targeted six key issues for 2006.

Editorial. March 6, 2006.

The 2006 AMA Health Care Advocacy Agenda is the road map for how the organization will help doctors help patients in the coming year. Most important, it's drawn in large part by AMA member physicians through surveys and physician roundtables.

Here are the six issues on this year's AMA agenda, along with notes on some of last year's progress.

Medical liability reform. The AMA will continue to press for reforms patterned after California's landmark MICRA legislation, including a $250,000 cap on noneconomic damages, as a means to solve the liability crisis. This will be done on both a federal level, where in 2005 the AMA successfully urged U.S. House passage of a $250,000 cap and limits on attorneys' contingency fees, and on a state level, where last year the AMA supported medical societies who got caps or other reforms in eight states.

Medicare physician payment reform and regulatory relief. The AMA "will be relentless" in fighting to replace the flawed Medicare payment formula that would result in deep reimbursement cuts, threatening care for seniors. Last year the AMA secured House and Senate passage of a bill that halted a 4.4% hike in favor of a one-year freeze, allowing time to work for a long-term solution. Building on the success last year of urging the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to reverse eliminating coverage of more than 100 procedures at ambulatory surgery centers, the AMA also plans to push Congress and federal agencies to reduce costly and counterproductive administrative burdens and unfunded mandates.