Interest Group Politics In America: Impact Of The American Medical Association On American Healthcare Reform From FDR To Barack Obama

Interest groups are ubiquitous in Washington,DC,as well as in states,cities and every other place where government policies are made.Interest groups make unremitting efforts to attain their goals through various strategies,such as lobbying the government,electioneering and mobilizing the public.Considered as one of the most influential groups in the United States,the American Medical Association has been exerting influence on healthcare policymaking since its founding.From the 1940 s all the way to the 1990 s,the American Medical Association had repeatedly been an opposing and mighty force against comprehensive and compulsory healthcare reform,specifically speaking,FDR‘s health reform,President Truman‘s national healthcare proposal,Nixon‘s national health insurance proposal,and Bill Clinton‘s Health Reform.Starting with the background of interest group politics in America,the first chapter elaborates on the definition and categorization of interest groups,major theories on interest group politics as well as typical lobbying strategies of interest groups.Chapter Two elucidates the history of the U.S.healthcare system and reform.The third chapter provides a historical background of the American Medical Association along with its organizational structure and political ideology.Chapter Four and Five are the main body of the thesis.Chapter Four illustrates the AMA‘s interaction with U.S.healthcare policymaking from FDR to Barack Obama in chronological order.In the last chapter,the thesis deals with the mechanism of the AMA‘s influence on U.S.healthcare policymaking,in which the AMA‘s position and role in the U.S.politics of interest groups and the strategies employed by the AMA are discussed on a historical basis and presented in the form of various tables.The thesis concludes by arguing that the AMA did play a predominant role in shaping the current U.S.healthcare system,and in the political sphere of healthcare reform,power mostly rests on the elite,namely,the physicians and insurers.