AMA supports Ryan voucher plan for Medicare

[Quantum Windbag]

It turns out that Biden was lying about the AMA not liking Ryan's plan.

Is anyone surprised?

At the Vice-Presidential debate last week, Joe Biden claimed that the American Medical Association sided with him, and against Paul Ryan, on the merits of the Romney-Ryan plan for Medicare reform. “Who do you believe?” exclaimed Biden. “The AMA [and] me? A guy who has fought his whole life for this? Or somebody [like Paul Ryan]?” Well, it turns out that the AMA’s key policy committee has come out in favor of premium support for Medicare, in a fashion that tracks closely with what Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are proposing.
I’ve had my disagreements with the AMA, which like its cousin the AARP, generates hundreds of millions of dollars in income from our existing, wasteful health-care system, and often stands in the way of needed reforms. But this past weekend, the AMA’s key policy committee, the Council on Medical Service, voted to endorse a Medicare reform plan that shares key traits with the ones put forth by Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan.
“The [AMA] policy identifies changes that must be made to strengthen the traditional Medicare program (i.e., restructuring beneficiary cost-sharing, including modifying Medigap rules, and changing the eligibility age to match Social Security),” the Council writes, “and expresses support for giving beneficiaries a choice of plans for which the federal government would contribute a standard amount (i.e., a ‘defined contribution’) toward the purchase of traditional fee-for-service Medicare or another health insurance plan approved by Medicare. The Council firmly believes that implementing a defined contribution system, with strong regulatory protections for patients, is a responsible and feasible approach to strengthening the Medicare program.”

Key AMA Committee Endorses Paul Ryan-Like 'Defined Contribution' Reforms for Medicare - Forbes

Here is the AMA report.

http://www.ama-assn.org/assets/meeting/2012i/i12-refcomm-j.pdf