[nickff]

>"That's like saying that Comcast/Time Warner are a "union for Internet users"."

Comcast and Time Warner are most comparable to hospital chains in the medical context (or perhaps insurers, depending on what parameters you choose for the comparison).

>"If the AMA were "little more than a union for doctors", doctors would have a lot more respect for it, instead of the great contempt that they currently do."

Many rank-and-file union members hold their organizations in contempt.

>"If anything, the AMA is an advocate for the insurance companies that the doctors are beholden to"

The AMA's members are physicians, and other medical personnel; you may look at the AMA as a union, lobbying group, or a professional association, but it is certainly not advocating for the interests of the insurers.[1]

[1] http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/membership/faqs.page?

[chimeracoder]

> The AMA's members are physicians, and other medical personnel; you may look at the AMA as a union, lobbying group, or a professional association, but it is certainly not advocating for the interests of the insurers.[1]

Explicitly, certainly not. But in some ways they do end up empowering insurers (whether intentionally or corruption of their original intent).

(And by the way, I didn't mean that this was the case either; just that it was a slightly less ludicrous interpretation than the original statement.)

[nickff]

I think you are right that the AMA often ends up helping insurers in a number of ways, much like the California prisons guards' union which has interests that coincide with those of the prisons.[1] The way I look at industry-wide unions, they act as a tool for the companies to collude without direct communication.

[1] http://www.policymic.com/articles/41531/union-of-the-snake-h...