ORGANIZED MEDICINE

Dr. Dickey's success in access

Reviewing efforts during her term to expand health insurance access for America's uninsured, Dr. Dickey pledges to continue the push.

By Bonnie Booth, AMNews staff. July 19 , 1999.
AMNews Annual Meeting '99 coverage - AMA's Annual Meeting site.

Chicago -- Nancy W. Dickey, MD, finished her term as AMA president with a promise to continue to work to give all the patients of America health insurance coverage.

In both her opening address to the House of Delegates at the AMA Annual Meeting here and her farewell remarks at the inauguration of incoming President Thomas R. Reardon, MD, Dr. Dickey continued to highlight the issue of health insurance access for the nation's 43 million uninsured.

"Advancing the cause of universal coverage has been AMA policy for more than the past decade, and in the past year it has been my professional passion as well," Dr. Dickey said. "This time last year, addressing this very assembly, I reached into my black bag and pulled out a patient appointment card and I told you that we needed to make sure that every American had the ability to get an appointment when they need it.

"I'm very proud to tell you that with the work we've done together, we've actually been seeing some results in this campaign to give all the patients of America access to health insurance coverage and a way to pay for it."

She said the AMA had been successful in breaking down some of the barriers to Medicaid so that children will be covered and that tax credit legislation is making progress in Congress.

And Dr. Dickey touted the work of six of the largest medical specialty societies who banded together with the AMA to tackle the issue of universal access.

The Physicians' Work Group on Universal Coverage includes the AMA, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Emergency Physicians, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American College of Physicians--American Society of Internal Medicine and the American College of Surgeons.

The group issued a joint statement in mid-June urging Congress and the declared 2000 presidential candidates to push the issue onto the national agenda and increase public awareness of the problem.

Dr. Dickey said the group would hold an all-medicine summit on the issue sometime this fall.

In for the long haul

"Obviously this is not a short-term project," she said. "It is a journey of a thousand miles or more. And we've only reached the two-mile marker. We must journey on and grow the army on the way. And I couldn't be prouder that the AMA is leading the march."

Dr. Dickey recapped several of the AMA activities that kept her occupied for the last year, including taking on the Health Care Financing Administration and the American Assn. of Retired Persons over their plan to have senior citizens serve as the Medicare fraud patrol, pushing for patient protection legislation and for legislation that will supply antitrust relief to physicians.

"I feel like I've been sitting in the catbird seat when it comes to witnessing and being a part of change," she said. "If anything, change has been the one constant that has defined our modern era. Now, as that era closes along with this century, my charge and challenge to you who lead our profession into the new millennium is this: Let us take care of physicians, so we can take care of our patients.

"Let us devote our energies -- and the collective energy here is absolutely amazing -- to create an environment in which our AMA can not only flourish, but repeatedly prevail. An environment in which every one of our patients is protected against those who view them as covered lives, rather than vulnerable individuals who need our care."

As she has traversed the country over the past year, Dr. Dickey has carried a stethoscope to remind her of her responsibility to her patients and to America's patients. During her farewell address, she passed the stethoscope to Dr. Reardon.

"Our role as leaders, like that of a stethoscope, is not to make the sounds ourselves, but to amplify the message we hear," she said. "Our role is to truly listen to the House of Medicine and to use our bully pulpit to raise awareness of the obstacles and the issues within our profession itself."

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