Dr. Lefty
HAYES, STEPHEN F.
Dr. Lefty The American Medical Association embraces social activism. BY STEPHEN F. HAYES FOR DECADES, the relationship between congressional Republicans and the American Medical Association was...
...For decades one of the most intensely Republican interest groups on Capitol Hill, the AMA this year has given most of its political money to Democrats...
...Ganske and McCain are leaders too...
...I guess it may be in reaction to something else," says AMA chairman Tim Flaherty, of Lott's request...
...But Schenken, the former AMA trustee, argues that there is a reason more money is going to Democrats: The AMA has become more centralized...
...Just the gun industry...
...Whatever the reasons for the changes, and no matter how much the AMA downplays them, congressional Republicans are not happy...
...In the 1996 political cycle, more than 80 percent of the AMA's political giving went to Republicans...
...Corlin is trying to revive this...
...But as of June 1, Democrats had received two-thirds of the AMA's political money for this election cycle...
...The dispute reached fever pitch in late July, when Senate minority leader Trent Lott urged the Bush administration to reconsider an exclusive government contract that is worth at least $18 million to the AMA...
...The activity right now is quite a bit different than the nine years when I was on the board," he says...
...The dues-paying doctors in Congress are afraid . . . the lobbying shop in D.C...
...Though Hastert, Lott, and other top GOP leaders have become increasingly vocal in their criticism of the AMA, the group's chairman isn't worried...
...Corlin is selling the same old gun control snake oil under the AMA label," says Dr...
...the AMA's recent political activity...
...That something else would be the AMA's opposition to the GOP on the patients' bill of rights...
...Timothy Wheeler, head of Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership...
...The AMA's Flaherty says those figures give "a false sense of the general direction of the AMA...
...It used to conduct its political activity as a federation: AMA national leaders deferred to the state medical associations on endorsement and contribution decisions...
...Recently, it has involved itself in tobacco lawsuits, gun control, and even the battle over gay Boy Scout leaders...
...The head of the AMA fired back last week, suggesting Lott's effort was about political payback, not taxpayer money...
...To be sure, on the patients' bill of rights, the AMA supported the proposal preferred by Democrats, but that legislation was also championed by Republicans Greg Ganske in the House and John McCain in the Senate...
...Politicians don't like to make decisions, and the patients' bill of rights was a hard decision...
...But AMA board chairman Flaherty defends Corlin...
...In fact, no other consumer industry in the United States—not even the tobacco industry—has been allowed to so totally evade accountability for the harm their products cause to human beings...
...There were real issue differences between the AMA and the Republican leadership," says Flaherty, "but that's politics...
...Since the June 1 reporting date, he adds, the giving has leveled out considerably...
...The animosity has grown this year in the battle over the patients' bill of rights...
...isn't fighting for the interests of doctors in the hinterlands...
...Flaherty is right...
...This, one minute after lamenting, "It's as if guns have replaced fists as the playground weapon of choice...
...If [a position] didn't come from the grass roots, the AMA wouldn't support it," he says...
...In the nonprofit world, the Pew Foundation and the Ford Foundation are just two of many institutions founded by conservatives and gradually pulled left...
...The AMA has begun to pressure states from the top down with their political activity contributions...
...Schenken, who served as an AMA trustee from 1985 to 1994 and as chairman of the Nebraska GOP from 1991 to 1995, is troubled by the changes...
...Whatever the reason, the AMA has stepped up its public presence on a wide range of social issues, and its president, Richard Corlin, is leading the charge...
...In the same spirit of social reform, the AMA House of Delegates this summer passed a resolution encouraging the Boy Scouts to allow gay troop leaders...
...The things he said in his speech are AMA policy...
...But Schenken says things are very different today...
...And that's the way it worked, I would say, until the last three or four years, and it was an absolute...
...Even when a state group supported a challenger with no chance of winning, Schenken recalls, the national AMA followed suit...
...I think you can say there's a trend," says Dr...
...We don't regulate guns in America...
...The AMA's political contributions mirror the organization's leftward drift...
...No federal agency is allowed to exercise oversight over the gun industry to ensure consumer safety...
...Jerald Schenken, of Stephen F. Hayes is a staff writer at THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...Corlin gave the game away with a preemptive plea that his speech was "not a polemic" and "not even about gun control...
...Corlin, like AMA presidents before him, called attention to important public issues...
...There's no question about it...
...Corlin's crusade has, predictably, stoked the anger of the National Rifle Association and other gun-rights groups...
...Indeed, examples abound of professional groups politicized from with-in—the American Bar Association, the PTA, even the American Library Association...
...In his speech, Corlin didn't mention the issue AMA members named as the most important, according to a recent poll by the American Association of Health Plans—namely, malpractice reform...
...Wheeler points to a survey reported last fall in Medical Economics magazine that shows 45 percent of physicians own a firearm and says the AMA leadership is out of touch with its own members on the issue...
...Much to the chagrin of Republicans, over the past five years, the AMA has drifted to the left...
...Speaker Hastert has been incredibly frustrated in that the AMA [national leadership] has lost touch with its members from coast to coast," says Pete Jeffries, a spokesman for the House speaker...
...One AMA physician from California offers an explanation: "The kind of people who gravitate to the leadership in groups like the AMA generally have an expansive view of social activism...
...Some say the escalating battle between congressional Republicans and the AMA highlights the organization's evolution from a simple association of physicians to just another liberal lobbying group...
...Since the late 1980s, the AMA has warned that "uncontrolled ownership and use of firearms, especially handguns, is a serious threat to the public's health...
...We do regulate other dangerous products like cars and prescription drugs and tobacco and alcohol—but not guns," Corlin lamented...
...The AMA has a long record of advocacy on gun control and Dr...
...BY STEPHEN F. HAYES FOR DECADES, the relationship between congressional Republicans and the American Medical Association was healthy, even robust...
...I don't know that we're yet able to say whether it's a long-term, sustainable trend, or whether it's just related to the [leadership] mix that we have now...
...Lately, though, the two seem to make each other sick...
...In his inaugural address in late June, Dr...
...As you know, in organizations it often doesn't take too many people to change these things...
...Unlike his predecessors, however, he spoke not of patient advocacy or service to the community or the patient-physician relationship or professional standards in medicine—but about guns...
...Four years later, the split was almost 50-50...
...And not only was malpractice reform absent from Corlin's speech, it does not even figure among the AMA's "legislative and regulatory priorities" for the 107th Congress...
...As far as leadership, it depends who you consider leaders," Flaherty adds...
...The current issue of the NRA magazine features a cover story blasting the AMA...
...Meanwhile, some issues of real professional concern go unaddressed...
...I don't think we've fractured our relationship with the Republicans," Flaherty says...
...This, critics say, puts it out of step not only with Republican leaders, but with its own Republican-leaning constituency...
Vol. 6 • August 2001 • No. 46
