The Devil is in the Details

The Eureka Journal reported that the California Association of Physicians Groups supports the assisted suicide legalization bill A.B. 374. As I noted here at the time, that organization is a lobbying group representing the business and political interests of group physician practices, that is, it is a group for HMO doctors. One would think this would be a relevant part of the story since one big issue in the assisted suicide debate is that the “medical treatment” of killing could become a splendid method of cost cutting in a managed care/HMO health care economy given that these are often the most expensive patient for which to care.

Unfortunately, the Eureka Journal—probably merely writing off of a press release—omits that part of the story. Indeed, their description makes it sound as if the CAPG represents non profit professional associations, rather than the business entities. From the story:

The California Association of Physician Groups, which represents thousands of doctors in more than 150 organized medical organizations, is one of the largest of its kind in the nation.

Also note that the Journal didn’t get a response of opponents of the bill to the endorsement. Had they done so, they wouldn’t have missed the core of the story.

Post Script: I wrote a letter to the editor about this that will apparently be published. That’s nice.