The Nation - News from Dec. 25, 1986

The American Medical Assn. asked a federal judge to block a new law that would set maximum payments that doctors may charge Medicare patients. The AMA named Health and Human Services Secretary Otis R. Bowen in the suit, which seeks to declare as unconstitutional the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1986. The suit, filed in federal court in Lubbock, Tex., asked also for a temporary restraining order preventing enforcement of the law until physicians are supplied with information necessary to comply with it. The Texas Medical Assn., a county medical society and several doctors and patients joined in the suit.