Program - Medical Association Membership
Dr. Veltmeyer came to this country from South America at the age of 11 and lived with his Aunt for many years, eventually becoming a doctor. He is currently the Chief of the Department of Family Medicine at Sharp Grossmont Hospital providing senior leadership to over 200 doctors.
Dr. Veltmeyer is married, with two young children. His wife, Laura, was diagnosed with Breast Cancer in July of 2015. For Dr. Veltmeyer, Laura became a striking example of what happens when insurance company executives and are given veto control over the treatment recommendations of medical professionals. Diagnostic tests were requested on several occasions, but denied. Critical time was lost. Turned out Laura had a secondary Cancer as well, in her lungs. Tests would have helped find the Cancer sooner and treatment would have begun sooner. It seems that 80% of a doctor’s time is spent defending the need for tests and certain medications for patients. In 2016, 4 Trillion Dollars were spent on healthcare. Health Care and Health Insurance are NOT equal.
Dr. Veltmeyer and his wife have started the Dr. James and Laura Veltmeyer Foundation. One of the projects of the Foundation is MAM: Medical Association Membership. It’s a Health Care Reform Plan. Their mission is to provide quality and affordable health care to all Americans as well as to people in distant lands. This includes projects like San Diego Surgeons International, which makes the best surgical care available. At home, they promote enactment of the Medical Association Membership model of direct primary care, which places doctors and patients in charge of health care, not government or insurance companies. They seek to build public, political, and legislative support for MAM as well as other direct primary care plans as part of a revolutionary reform of America’s health care system. They also seek to roll back the regulatory and compliance rules on physicians which restrict their ability to treat their patients. Currently, there is a Code Book, which must be used for every patient visit. If the Code is wrong, the doctor isn’t paid. There are thousands upon thousands of Codes, so finding the correct Code is critical and time consuming.
The MAM plan would cost about $100 a month ( $50.00 for a Medicare recipient) and cover all your doctor visits for that month. This Plan would revolutionize an ‘archaic’ medical delivery system that has existed practically unchanged since World War II, uprooting the system of third-party payment. For catastrophic care, the premium would be around $200.00 per month. This insurance would cover life threatening medical events, which happen to about 4% of the population.
Surveys show that 43% of physicians are considering retiring in the next 5 years because they are being crushed by a myriad of unnecessary government regulations. This will lead to a serious doctor shortage making care even more difficult to get. Variations of MAM are already working in many parts of the USA. Over 5000 physicians are now providing some form of direct primary care.
Dr Veltmeyer feels that we need to convince Congress that making cosmetic changes to Obamacare won’t work. Continuing in any way with the subsidies, taxes, mandates and regulations is doomed to failure. We need to convince our elected representatives to enact REAL reform, not fake reform that does nothing to save lives or bring down costs. There are policies that need to be changed now including the IRS definition of direct primary care for HSA payments. Support the Primary Care Enhancement Act (HR 365). Replace legislators who refuse to vote for real health care reform. When we can get the government and the insurance companies out of health care, we can put patients and doctors back in control.