11.14.11 Amid mounting economic uncertainties in the U.S. health care market, the American Medical Association’s representative body convenes today in New Orleans for a four-day conference to set policy for the nation’s largest physicians group.

The 164-year-old organization helps set medical practice standards and, at least historically, acts as the most powerful collective physician lobbying force in debates over clinical care, research, lawsuits, medical education, insurance regulation and other aspects of the American health-care system.

Among the hot topics at the session: AMA lobbying of the congressional deficit supercommittee, implementation of the federal health-care overhaul, payment models and methods for Medicare and Medicaid, and drug shortages.