True North

Democrats were excited to tell the world that AARP and the AMA had endorsed Pelosi's Abomination, otherwise known as H.R. 3962. This Newsmax article shows that there's more to the story than Speaker Pelosi is telling us:

The American Medical Association (AMA) is facing a rebellion from some of its members, who have introduced a resolution to revoke the organization's endorsement of the Democrats' healthcare proposals.

AMA delegates tell Newsmax that the association's board of trustees failed to obtain delegate approval before endorsing the reform proposals. The AMA's delegate assembly is considered the group's primary policy-making body.

Dr. James Dolan, the president of the Florida Medical Association, tells Newsmax the delegates "are pretty upset with the board of trustees right now" and an emergency resolution will be submitted to revoke the endorsement.

Rescinding the AMA endorsement would be a significant blow to Obamacare at a critical point in the debate, as reflected in Democrats' reaction Thursday when they'd won endorsements from AMA and the AARP.

There's a full scale rebellion within the AMA:

In fact, the American Association of Neurological Surgeons and the Congress of Neurological Surgeons announced their opposition to the House bill today.

"Sadly, in the ongoing health care reform debate, the more things change, the more they stay the same. We could not support H.R. 3200, the 'America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009,' which was introduced in the House last July and unfortunately, we must now oppose this new House bill too. It contains no significant changes or improvements when it comes to the issues we believe are vital for true health care reform in this country," said AANS president Troy Tippett.

That isn't the only grumbling within the medical community:

Former AMA president Stormy Johnson is preparing a resolution to rescind the endorsement, sources said. And the surgeons are introducing a resolution that would call on the AMA to actively oppose any legislation that includes a public option or a temporary doc fix or that doesn't include medical malpractice reform.

When this fight is over, I suspect that we'll find out that the this administration threatened the AMA. It's already known that this administration cut a deal with them:

At a May 11 White House meeting that US officials called a "game changer," drugmakers, the insurance and hospital lobbies, and the American Medical Association, representing physicians, committed to finding a total of $2 trillion in savings in the healthcare system over the next 10 years. Hospitals and the pharmaceutical industry even agreed to fund a multimillion-dollar ad campaign to promote reform.

This is hardball politics at its corrupt worst. This administration is telling the world that the AMA supports Pelosi's bill even though the directors of the AMA didn't put the endorsement up to a vote. This is yet another example of an organization's leadership that doesn't pay attention to its rank-and-file. In much the same fashion as the TEA Party activists saying NO MORE!!!, the various sub-groups are saying NO MORE!!! WE WILL BE PAID ATTENTION TO!!!

Republicans and their 'family' of 527s should be at this meeting getting videos shot of these groups rebelling, then taking them to Capitol Hill. Seeing the open rebellion might change votes.

The bottom line is that Republicans shouldn't back away from a bare-knuckled fight on this. It's just too important not to do everything possible.

Comments welcome at LFR.