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After SCOTUS Healthcare Ruling, No Middle Ground Will Remain
When the Supreme Court hands down its decision on whether or not the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is constitutional, Glen Stream, MD, FAAFP, MBI, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP), hopes he'll be in meetings and not making rounds in his clinic in Spokane, Wash.
That's because he wants to be available to respond to the flood of calls anticipated from the media—and even his fellow physicians. The high court is expected to decide this month whether the healthcare reform law should be overturned in full or in part, or remain intact. Stream, for one, is ready to give his opinion.
And that's in the middle of the road.
Stream is unlike a lot of his physician colleagues who detest the law and would love nothing better than to see it completely trashed by the Supreme Court.
Stream's AAFP, which represents 105,000 doctors, has supported the health care law. His association certainly isn't a cheerleader for it, though. The executive board supported the act, passed two years ago, though "somewhat reluctantly on the whole," Stream tells HealthLeaders Media. "It was controversial among membership; it was imperfect, and incomplete."
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Comments are moderated. Please be patient.
pplemmons (6/19/2012 at 2:17 PM)
I beg to differ with my friend Joe Tye. How can the mandate be construed as taking personal responsibility when individuals are being compelled by the government? This is a complete contradiction. The mandate is reason enough to reject the law, but it is also larded with features that take a giant step toward government control over private health decisions. I for one do not want to cede my constitutional freedoms to apparatchiks in Washington, D.C.
joe (6/18/2012 at 9:27 AM)
"Whether it's real or not, I think they feel they don't want more government control." What an interesting comment by a supposedly 'educated' physician...I wonder if the good doctor prefers having the insurance companies having MORE control over his practice? srsly the ignorance of some people is hard to understand
kakistocraphobe (6/15/2012 at 10:20 AM)
Tyco, perhaps some doctors actually care whether Congress is passing unconstitutional laws, regardless of their pocketbooks. That would actually be a very mature position.