Report of the AMA Board of Trustees

Single-payer proposals that promise to provide universal coverage, maintain fee-for-service medicine, protect physician autonomy, restrain health spending, and simplify reimbursement and billing may appear enticing. However, the Board of Trustees continues to find that single-payer systems with strict global budgets: fail to provide adequate and timely urgent and elective specialty services; continue to encroach on physician autonomy and the physician-patient relationship; neglect changes in technology; have not been able to stabilize health spending; and incur some of the same administrative costs as multiple-payer systems. References for this report are available upon request.