U.S. doctor's group supports health care reform

By Andrew Stern

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Fixing the U.S. healthcare system will require extensive reforms, much like treating a patient with multiple organ failure, the president of the leading U.S. doctor's group said on Wednesday.

Dr. J. James Rohack, a practicing cardiologist from Texas and president of the American Medical Association, said physicians are committed to restructuring the health system because "if we don't do anything, we're headed over a cliff."

Rohack listed some reforms from the physicians' perspective in an interview with Reuters as the AMA concluded its annual meeting in Chicago.

* Liability laws to give doctors who follow agreed-upon best treatment practices protection from lawsuits. The aim is to reduce costly "defensive medicine" in which doctors order unnecessary tests and treatments to protect against legal liability.

* Electronic records that contain a patient's medical history, and a living will, to reduce medical testing and curtail costly end-of-life treatment.

* A single, one-size-fits-all medical insurance form to reduce expensive and time-consuming administrative tasks.

* Caps on non-economic damage awards, usually for pain and suffering -- something opposed by President Barack Obama but already in place in 32 U.S. states. The caps help reduce physicians' crippling malpractice insurance premiums.

Getting Congress, the Obama administration, and myriad interest groups to agree on the components of healthcare reform and pay for it -- $1.2 trillion or more over the next decade, by some estimates -- is the challenge ahead.