The American Medical Association Embraces Racial Discrimination

The American Medical Association (AMA) has officially endorsed racial discrimination. That’s the takeaway from a recent legal filing by the AMA, which represents more than 240,000 doctors. It marks a dangerous turn for the storied institution, which is undermining patient well-being while claiming to promote it.

The AMA’s filing is in support of New York’s policy requiring medical professionals to allocate scarce COVID-19 treatments on the basis of race. Such a policy was previously unheard of, for good reason: It forces doctors to change their standard of care based on a patient’s skin color. The name for that is discrimination, and it has no place in the doctor’s office.

The AMA’s filing is filled with “anti-racist” jargon. It tries to justify the New York policy on the grounds that “numerous social drivers of health” – including “inequitable living, working, and other life conditions” – “have historically prevented people of color, and Black individuals in particular, from having the same opportunities to attain good physical health as white individuals.” Yet there is no credible evidence that biased care by physicians contributes to the disparities in clinical outcomes for minority patients, so there is no justification for doling out treatments based on race. Doctors want and work hard to provide the best and most personalized care to all their patients. They don’t want to help some at the expense of others.

The AMA is supporting New York even after other states, like Minnesota and Utah, have dropped similar discriminatory policies. The AMA should be ashamed. And racial discrimination in health care should be stopped, for the sake of patients of every color.