Good op-ed piece in the Washington Post by Regina E. Herzlinger, author of the book "Who Killed Health Care?", in which she addresses the opposition by the American Medical Association (AMA) to the in-store medical clinics that are cropping up all over the country.

An excerpt:

“You might expect that the AMA would fight the insurers, hospitals, government bureaucrats and ivory tower academics who have diminished physicians' incomes, besmirched their ethical reputations and compromised their professionalism -- but you would be wrong. No, instead, at its annual meeting last month, the AMA declared war on retail medical clinics, located in places such as CVS and Wal-Mart … The association claims that health insurers allow clinics to waive or lower patient co-payments while forcing doctors to collect these fees. Isn't the AMA's beef with insurers, then? No, AMA doctors complain that clinics do not offer comprehensive care and that they disrupt the standard physician-patient relationship … The AMA also says these clinics represent the intrusion of profit-seeking corporations into medicine.

“Nonsense. This is all about protecting the doctors' turf. After all, when Congress imposed a moratorium on physician-owned, for-profit specialty hospitals in 2004, the AMA went all out to repel that threat. Its issue is not profit but pure and simple empire building.

“Unfortunately, while the AMA engages in trivial turf warfare, physicians are increasingly forced to become salaried employees of hospitals and insurers and are constrained by recipes for the practice of medicine that are cooked up by government and insurance company bureaucrats.

“The cycle is bringing about the imminent collapse of the medical profession – which gravely endangers our health-care system. We and doctors deserve better advocates.”

KC's View: Bingo.