2006 Annual Meeting of the House of Delegates Reference Committee highlights
AMA
The AMA voted to support a requirement that individuals and families earning greater than 500 percent of the federal poverty level obtain, at a minimum, coverage for catastrophic health care and evidence-based preventive health care, using the tax structure to achieve compliance. Upon implementation of a system of refundable tax credits or other subsidies to obtain health care coverage, this requirement would apply to individuals and families earning less than 500 percent of the federal poverty level.
http://www.ama-assn.org/ama1/pub/upload/mm/471/refcom_highlights.pdf
Comment:
By Don McCanne, M.D.
For 2006, an income of 500 percent of the federal poverty level is about $50,000 for an individual and about $100,000 for a family of four. Only about one-tenth of the uninsured have incomes at that level or higher. This is obviously only a tiny step towards universal coverage.
What is important is that the AMA is now officially on record as supporting an individual mandate to purchase health coverage in the private insurance market. They would eventually expand that to cover all of the uninsured through a system of refundable tax credits. The good news is that the AMA is explicitly supporting universal health care coverage.
The bad news is that individual mandates for private plans is the most expensive method of achieving universal coverage, and it leaves patients vulnerable to medical debt because of the deterioration in the quality of plans available in the private market.
Let’s not simply settle for universal coverage. Let’s also make it efficient, affordable and comprehensive through a single payer program of national health insurance.