The American Medical Association (AMA) was formed in 1847 and came to action in 1897. It is an organization for highly practising medics and its goal is to promote medicine and improvement of public health. AMA advocated for the insurance of all Americans but not some privileged group. It also advocated for freedom of universal access for patients and freedom of practise among practitioners. AMA advocates for the welfare of high professional medics. When Truman was the president, he proposed a health bill that would require mandatory insurance of all citizens to a medical cover. AMA opposed this plan greatly because it went against the beliefs of AMA of freedom of patients and medics to choose their insurance and treatment plan. The major reason why AMA opposed that bill of a national health program was that direct government involvement in health programs was not a good idea (Onge, 2017). People in the medical field needed to be involved before such a decision was made. The interested groups in this case being patients and medics were not well consulted thus interfering with their freedom of choice.
Nursing and national nursing organizations can play a role in helping craft new legislation for health system reform. Nurses interact with patients on the ground and they, therefore, know what goes on (Fischer, 2016). They know everything that needs to be done to improve the whole health system. It is therefore possible for them to impact change to the healthcare system bypassing the grievances of relevant political leaders through the nursing organizations. When politicians are discussing matters of health, the elected nurse practitioners can attend these meetings and contribute to the agenda with the experience they have with dealing with patients and working in the health field.
Nurses should be involved in crafting new laws for health system reform. Nurses are in the field and basically know the challenges that are there. Nurses can provide legislators with possible solutions to the problems in the health system as that is their area of expertise.
Fischer, S. A. (2016). Transformational leadership in nursing: a concept analysis. Journal of
advanced nursing, 72(11), 2644-2653.
Onge, J. S. (2017). Operation coffeecup: Ronald Reagan, rugged individualism, and the debate
over “Socialized Medicine”. Rhetoric & Public Affairs, 20(2), 223-252.