About to Get Very Ugly

On Wednesday, Democrats blocked S. 1776, designed to fix the Medicare physician payment formula. In doing so, they may have gained a mortal enemy in the AMA.

To this point, the AMA was cautiously optimistic about reform possibilities. This seems to have evaporated:

Congress created the Medicare physician payment system, and Congress needs to fix this problem once and for all to fulfill its obligation to seniors, baby boomers and military families. Permanent repeal of the Medicare physician payment formula is essential to comprehensive health system reform.

[AMA deeply disappointed Senate has failed seniors, baby boomers and military families by blocking S. 1776]

Coupled with last week’s health insurance industry shot across the bow, this can only mean a very noisy Senate-House ObamaCare legislation merger, and even more contentious full body approval.

If this legislation moves forward, Congressional Democrats are about to learn a very costly lesson: once the groups you invited to dinner discover they’re actually on the menu, nobody sticks around very long, including and especially your voting constituents, who are directly affected by this legislation. That's most of America.