Psychiatr News February 1, 2008
Volume 43, Number 3, page 15
© 2008 American Psychiatric Association
Americans Are About to Hear From AMA
Mark Moran
The AMA ratchets up its campaign to convince politicians to take action
to get insurance coverage for the millions of Americans who lack it.
The AMA has launched a new phase of its Voice for the Uninsured campaign
with a barrage of broadcast, print, and online advertising.
Throughout 2008, the AMA will invest millions in advertising and events
surrounding the upcoming presidential election to spur action that will bring
health insurance coverage to those who lack it.
"By November, millions of Americans will have heard the AMA's concern
that 1 in 7 of us is uninsured, and they will have heard our call to voters to
cast their ballots with the issue of the uninsured in mind," said AMA
Board member and Boston pediatrician Samantha Rosman, M.D., in a statement
released at the start of the new campaign.
"Physicians see the consequences the uninsured face firsthand: these
patients live sicker and die younger," said Rosman. "The uninsured
often miss needed preventive care and put off seeing the doctor until their
health problems reach crisis proportions, leading to more difficult and more
costly conditions to treat."
Beginning last month, television ads were scheduled to air on cable news
and entertainment broadcasts, and print ads will run in U.S. News &
World Report, the AMA announced.
National print ads will run in daily and weekly news and healthy-lifestyle
publications including Newsweek, Time, and Men's Health, and
online ads will be featured on news-related Web sites.
The AMA says it will also reach out to voters through healthy-lifestyle
events and mobile billboards and will create profiles on the MySpace and
Facebook Web sites that focus on the problems faced by the uninsured.
The 2008 presidential campaign and the likelihood that health system reform
would be a central issue was a matter of intense debate at the interim meeting
of the AMA House of Delegates in November 2007, at which delegates discussed
ways to advance the AMA's own plan for health system reform (Psychiatric
News, December 21, 2007).
That plan emphasizes the use of tax credits to encourage individuals to
purchase health insurance. "Under the AMA proposal, those who need it
most would receive financial assistance to purchase health insurance,"
said Rosman. "The AMA plan gives individuals choices so they can select
the appropriate coverage for themselves and their families, and it promotes
fair rules that include protections for high-risk patients and greater
individual responsibility."
Information about the AMA plan is posted at
<www.voicefortheuninsured.org>.
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