American Medical Association

From Free Talk Live

The American Medical Association (AMA) is the largest association of medical doctors in the United States. The AMA's purpose is to advance the interests of physicians, to promote public health, to lobby for legislation favorable to physicians and patients, and to raise money for medical education. It also publishes the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), which has the largest circulation of any weekly medical journal in the world,[1] nine medical specialty journals,[2] and a weekly newspaper for physicians, the American Medical News.[3]

Criticisms

Critics of the American Medical Association, including economist Milton Friedman, have asserted that the organization acts as a government-sanctioned guild and has attempted to increase physicians' wages and fees limit by influencing limitations on the supply of physicians and non-physician competition [4] [5]. They assert that these actions have not only inflated the cost of healthcare in the United States, but have also have caused a decline in the quality of healthcare [6].