CMA: ‘Picked The Wrong Fight’ With UC, Says Sac. Bee
Today's Sacramento Bee contends that the California Medical Association's suit against the University of California system misses the mark. In the suit, the CMA charges that the UC system engages in the "corporate practice of medicine" by placing private-practice physicians on its UC Davis Medical Center payroll to get payments from HMOs and patients for its hospitals. The editorial contends that "the cutthroat financial world of HMOs and cost-cutting" has forced the university "to behave competitively" and that the law banning corporate practice of medicine was passed "a half-century ago" when legislators were concerned that companies hiring doctors to care for their employees could face conflict of interests between quality care and "profit desires." According to the Bee, the CMA "has made the wrong diagnosis. The problem isn't a profit-hungry university. The problem is a glut of medical specialists in California's swanky cities that the health care system neither needs nor can afford." The editorial concludes: "No lawsuit can reverse this imbalance of supply and demand. It makes no sense for the CMA, under the guise of an old law, to try" (12/21).
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