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Boehner Claims He Doesn’t Know Doctors Who Support House Health Bill, Trashes AMA For Endorsing It

Yesterday, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) denied that doctors supported the health care bill now moving through the House and attacked the American Medical Association for endorsing the legislation:

REPORTER: What is your reaction to the AMA’s endorsement of Obama’s plan?

BOEHNER: I have yet to talk to a doctor who is supporting the plan that is moving through the House. And for the American Medical Association to come out in support of this plan, even though I would think a great majority of their doctors are opposed to it, strikes me as inconsistent at best.

Watch it:

If Boehner hasn’t “talk[ed] to a doctor who is supporting the plan that is moving through the House,” then he isn’t getting out much. In fact, the grassroots doctors organization Doctors For America has 360 members in Boehner’s home-state of Ohio, and 13,642 doctors nationwide who support the major tenets of the House bill: expanding affordable coverage, ending the discriminatory practices of insurance companies, offering Americans the choice of a public option, re-orienting the incentives in the health care system to reward quality of care and allowing doctors to spend more time with patients, and giving doctors and patients more information about medical treatments and procedures.

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“As physicians, we witness the terrible consequences of the health care crisis everyday. We see millions of hard working Americans struggling to pay their premiums and worrying that a single hospitalization may force them into foreclosure or bankruptcy. As a physician, this is why I want to see health reform for my patients and for our country,” DFA President Vivek Murthy said. In an interview with the Wonk Room, Murthy explained why doctors support the major tenets of the House plan. Watch it:

Similarly, in its endorsement of the House bill, the American Medical Association applauds the legislation for recognizing “that fundamental Medicare reforms, including repeal of the sustainable growth rate formula, are essential to the success of broader health system reforms,” investing in chronic disease management, and addressing the primary physician shortage.

Having obstructed health care reform in Congress, Boehner will now go back to Ohio, where some 390 people are losing their health care every day. If he wants to “talk” to “doctors” or even constituents who support the House bill, all he has to do is listen.