My friend Barbara O’Brien (a.k.a. Maha of the very fine Mahablog) runs the Mesothelioma Law & Politics blog at the Mesothelioma & Asbestos Awareness Center and has been writing extensively on health-care reform. Take, for example, this must-read post on the American Medical Association’s appalling (if all-too predictable) opposition to a “public option,” that is, to a government-sponsored system (or even part of a system). Here’s a key passage, laying bare the AMA’s priorities:

We need to understand that the AMA is not the benevolent protector of sound medical practice it makes itself out to be. Its primary function is to protect the profit margins of the health care industry.

Make sure to read the whole thing. (And check back often with the MLP blog — see, for example, Barbara’s series on the relationship between health-care and tort reform.)

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For more on the AMA and health-care reform, see J. Thomas Duffy’s recent post, “Maybe Starbucks can sponsor the AMA’s Operation Coffee Cup II.”

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For more on Obama’s speech to the AMA, see TNR’s Jonathan Cohn, one of the leading voices on health-care reform anywhere.

(Cross-posted from The Reaction.)