Doctors Consider Health Care Possibilites as White House Pushes Reform

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• JIM LEHRER:

  But now, the Obama health reform pitch to doctors. NewsHour correspondent Betty Ann Bowser reports for our Health Unit, a partnership with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

• BETTY ANN BOWSER, NewsHour Correspondent:

  Listening to the president today was a group of doctors, many of them skeptical of Mr. Obama's health care reform plans. They belong to the American Medical Association, the nation's largest physicians' organization with some 250,000 members.

  In his Chicago speech, for the first time publicly, Mr. Obama put a price tag on providing health insurance for the nation's 50 million uninsured: about $1 trillion. And he pressed his argument that health care reform is crucial for economic recovery.

  BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States: Make no mistake: The cost of our health care is a threat to our economy. It's an escalating burden on our families and businesses. It's a ticking time bomb for the federal budget. And it is unsustainable for the United States of America.

• BETTY ANN BOWSER:

  The president had harsh rhetoric for his critics.

• BARACK OBAMA:

  There are those who will try and scuttle this opportunity no matter what, who will use the same scare tactics and fear-mongering that's worked in the past, who will give warnings about socialized medicine and government takeovers, long lines and rationed care, decisions made by bureaucrats and not doctors.

  We have heard this all before. And because these fear tactics have worked, things have kept getting worse.

• BETTY ANN BOWSER:

  The president directly addressed the most contentious issue in today's debate and one the AMA opposes: imposition of a government-run public insurance plan.

  In a statement released last week, the AMA said it opposes any public plan that forces physicians to participate, expands the fiscally challenged Medicare program, or pays Medicare rates. But the group said it is willing to consider other variations of a public plan.

• BARACK OBAMA:

  I understand that you're concerned that today's Medicare rates, which many of you already feel are too low, will be applied broadly in a way that means our cost savings are coming off your backs. And these are legitimate concerns, but they're ones I believe that can be overcome.

  As I stated earlier, the reforms we propose to reimbursement are to reward best practices, focus on patient care, not on the current piecework reimbursements.

  The public option is not your enemy; it is your friend, I believe. Let me also say that — let me also address an illegitimate concern that's being put forward by those who are claiming that a public option is somehow a Trojan horse for a single-payer system.

• BETTY ANN BOWSER:

  Backers of the public plan say it will give millions of Americans lower premiums and the private insurance companies some badly needed competition.

  President Obama also spoke about another issue important to physicians: malpractice lawsuits. But what he said wasn't exactly what they wanted to hear.

• BARACK OBAMA:

  I want to be honest with you; I'm not advocating caps on malpractice awards, which I believe — I personally believe can be unfair to people who've been wrongfully harmed.

  But I do think we need to explore a range of ideas about how to put patient safety first, how to let doctors focus on practicing medicine, how to encourage broader use of evidence-based guidelines. I want to work with the AMA so we can scale back the excessive defensive medicine.