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Comment by sayhar | Hacker News Reader

> They lobby, they control the supply of doctors, they restrict competition, and they even engage in price fixing

It saddens me that those are your go-to ideas of what a union is.

> The AMA was key in killing Truman's universal healthcare proposal starting in 1945.

Actual unions have been pushing for universal healthcare for much earlier than I was born. On this front AMA has been the enemy of real organized labor for decades.

A real union is about workers banding together to stand up to a boss who says "fuck me or you're fired", or to resist management giving themselves millions while cutting pay for workers.

Please don't dishonor the good name of organized labor by comparing them to the millionaire doctors who killed our chances for a sane healthcare system.

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I mean, the difference between "resist management giving themselves millions while cutting pay for workers" and "price fixing/restrict competition" is just an arbitrary, subjective distinction based on your opinion on how much money people should make. Either way the goal is to get more money for members of the group. If you don't think doctors deserve the inflated value the AMA has captured for them but think that other union workers deserve more money then that's fair enough but practically it's the same game.

There's also a word for what you're doing. A tautology I think? It seems disingenuous to classify unions based on "good" value capture. It creates a position where unions literally can do no wrong because they'll just stop meeting your definition of union.

>I mean, the difference between "resist management giving themselves millions while cutting pay for workers" and "price fixing/restrict competition" is just an arbitrary, subjective distinction based on your opinion on how much money people should make.

Who would you prefer was paid more? Your doctor or his non-medical MBA manager?

Whichever leads to the best, most efficient medical industry and provides myself as a consumer with the most value.

According to the MBA manager, most efficient = most profits. And most value = more tests and more expenses by the 'consumer'. Looks like you are on with the Kool Aid!

No True Scotsman Fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

Unions primarily engage in collective bargaining with the employers of their members. The AMA is not a union.

Very likely to be true and I wont disagree! I'm not actually even from the US so I'm unfamiliar with their scope. I disagree with the person I'm replying tos reasoning more than anything. Their objection was of a different nature than yours.

You're right, it isn't a union, it's a cartel!

No, a cartel is a group of competing firms in the same industry that form an alliance.

The best analogy for the AMA would be something like a guild.

No True Scots Union...

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