Michael Cannon writes:
The American Medical Association was among the top five organizational spenders ($9,720,000 spent in the last half of 2005) in part because they successfully lobbied to block Medicare payment cuts, which had already been enacted into law and were scheduled to take effect this year. That would be the third or fourth year in a row that providers have staved off those payment cuts.
Jagadeesh Gokhale and I have a theory. It is that politicians have no intention of reducing how much Medicare pays providers, but instead use the threat of payment cuts to extract political contributions from doctors and hospitals.
Seems plausible to me.
