Docs Bailing on Obama Health Reform

President Obama regularly boasts that doctors support his health care reform plan, and getting the American Medical Association's endorsement earlier this year was a coup. But in recent weeks, a number of state medical groups are breaking rank with the AMA, publicly stating that they don't support key elements of the Obama plan.

Some dissenting physicians try to downplay the issue but the break is embarrassing for both the AMA and for Obama. If the president loses support from the doctors, the fragile coalition of health industry interests he's put together could fall apart.

"There's no split—we just disagree on how to go about affecting change," says Texas Medical Association President Dr. William H. Fleming III, a Houston neurologist. "It's a big bill. There are good things in the bill and there are some things we can't endorse at this time."

Specifically, Dr. Fleming's group, the biggest state organization of doctors with 44,000 members, wants to see changes in Medicare pay to doctors and limit how much patients can collect from doctors in malpractice suits.

In addition to Texas, a group of seven state medical groups led by the Medical Association of Georgia wrote Congress last month to outline objections to the president's reform plan.