Now it is all making sense...the doctors see the threat emerging from
the nurses and intend to use the government to enforce their status in
health care.
Turf War Smackdown: The AMA and MDs vs. DNPs
<http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/mmMP/~3/kHD7hr9Z5YI/turf-war-sm
ackdown-ama-and-mds-vs-dnps.html>
Posted: 27 Aug 2009 07:42 AM PDT
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
<http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-mi-nursing-doctorate,0,470850
7.story> -- The University of Michigan-Flint is launching an online
doctoral program in nursing this fall. The university says the nurse
practitioners it trains will be able to assess and manage medical and
nursing problems in a variety of specialties and settings. It says the
new degree program is a response to a looming shortage of nurses and
doctors. The four-year Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) program
<http://www.umflint.edu/graduateprograms/nursing.htm> is aimed at
skills needed for advanced nursing practice in primary health care.
And what does the AMA think about the DNP alternative
<http://www.aafp.org/online/en/home/publications/news/news-now/professio
nal-issues/20080625ama-dnp.html> to a "looming shortage of nurses and
doctors?"
Delegates at the recent annual meeting of the AMA left little room for
doubt when it came to their views on the appropriate role of nurses in
patients' medical care. Although nurses -- including those with a
terminal degree in nursing -- are welcomed as part of the medical team,
physicians still need to take the lead.
Despite strongly worded opposition from national nursing organization
representatives who attended the meeting, the delegates adopted a
resolution that called for new AMA policy stipulating that doctors of
nursing practice, or DNPs, "must practice as part of a medical team
under the supervision of a licensed physician who has final authority
and responsibility for the patient." The delegates further directed the
AMA to oppose a recent move by the National Board of Medical Examiners,
or NBME, which earlier this spring announced
<http://www.nbme.org/PDF/springsummer2008Examiner.pdf> it would develop
and administer a certification exam for graduates of DNP programs.
Spending on Lobbying Doubled From 2000 to 2008
<http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/mmMP/~3/gVqPPEVNpp8/spending-on
-lobbying-doubled-from-2000.html>
Posted: 27 Aug 2009 05:56 AM PDT
<http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_otfwl2zc6Qc/SpaChS85kMI/AAAAAAAALIo/BttntWrao
-o/s1600-h/lobby2.bmp>
<http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_otfwl2zc6Qc/SpaCh96s_rI/AAAAAAAALIw/snAFAaBhk
j8/s1600-h/lobby1.bmp> The top chart above shows that spending on
lobbying in the U.S. more than doubled between 2000 ($1.56 billion) and
2008 ($3.30 billion), according to the searchable lobbying database of
OpenSecrets.org <http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/index.php> . The
bottom chart shows the top 20 organizations that spent the most on
lobbying between 1998-2009.
One of the indirect, and often hidden costs of increased government
spending, changes in tax policy, or increased government regulation, or
even the potential for increased government regulation of industries
(pharmaceuticals, health care) or higher taxes (windfall oil profits
tax), or the threat of deregulation of industries controlled by trade
groups like the AMA, is the cost of potentially wasteful "rent seeking
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent_seeking> ," aka lobbying. From the
list of top lobbying spenders, it looks a lot like the industries and
companies that had the most to gain or lose from government action
(health care, real estate, mortgage, GM, and Exxon) over the last ten
years spent the most on lobbying to influence legislation in their
favor.
Maybe it's also the case that some of the most heavily regulated
industries (health care, health insurance, oil, telecommunications, real
estate) spend the most on lobbying. For example, in the largely
unregulated high-tech sector, large industry leaders spent relatively
small amounts on lobbying in 2008: Dell Computer ($160,000), eBay ($2
million), Amazon ($1.3 million), Google ($2.8 million) and Yahoo! ($2.35
million). Compare those amounts to the heavily regulated and heavily
taxed Exxon, which spent $29 million on lobbying in 2008, or more than
10 times more than Google or Yahoo!
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