MINNEAPOLIS, June 16, 2008—The leading topics of discussion at the American Medical Association Annual Meeting in Chicago this week is preventing Medicare payment cuts that would limit access to care for seniors, and the AMA's proposal to expand health coverage to every American, regardless of income or health status.

The Minnesota delegation of the MMA are taking part in these and other important health care issue discussions.

In his opening remarks Saturday, AMA President Ronald M. Davis, M.D., compared Medicare physician payment cuts to a hamster wheel that continuously goes around in circles, with Congress expressing its good intentions but never doing anything.

Davis said organized medicine could find inspiration in Daniel Tammet, an autistic savant with Asperger syndrome who set the European record for reciting Pi.
“If a person with autism can recite Pi to more than 22,000 digits,” Davis said, “we ought to be able to figure out how to get off the [Medicare] hamster wheel.”

The AMA, MMA, and other physician organizations have been working hand in glove to fight the threatened Medicare cuts.

The AMA House of Delegates is considering dozens of reports and resolutions during the five-day meeting, including a resolution brought by the Minnesota delegation requesting that all national specialty societies include a succinct list of the AMA’s advocacy goals and the benefits of being an AMA member with the societies’ annual dues statements, and that the societies’ annual dues statements include the AMA dues amount and a chance to join the AMA.

The Minnesota delegation to the AMA includes:

Frank J. Indihar, M.D., chair of the delegation, and delegates
Raymond G. Christensen, M.D.
Kenneth W. Crabb, M.D.
Anthony C. Jaspers, M.D.
Sally J. Trippel, M.D.
John M. Van Etta, M.D.
Jason D. Meyers, medical student

Alternate delegates:

John P. Abenstein, M.D., M.S.E.E.
Gail E. Baldwin, M.D.
Blanton Bessinger, M.D., M.B.A.
David L. Estrin, M.D.
Paul C. Matson, M.D.
Benjamin H. Whitten, M.D.