Trump, while speaking at a rally in Waterford Township, Mich., on Friday, argued without evidence that doctors are improperly counting coronavirus deaths for monetary gain.
"Our doctors get more money if somebody dies from COVID. You know that, right? I mean our doctors are very smart people. So what they do is they say, 'I'm sorry, but everybody dies of COVID,'" he said.
Trump argued that other countries put less of an emphasis on COVID-19 as a cause of death than the U.S. does, adding, "With us, when in doubt, choose COVID. It's true."
Trump pushed a similar claim during a rally in Wisconsin last weekend, saying that "doctors get more money and hospitals get more money" if COVID-19 is listed as a cause of death.
Susan Bailey, the president of the AMA, pushed back on Trump's claims, pointing to work physicians, nurses and frontline health care workers have done during the pandemic to treat their patients.
“They did it because duty called and because of the sacred oath they took. The suggestion that doctors—in the midst of a public health crisis—are overcounting COVID-19 patients or lying to line their pockets is a malicious, outrageous, and completely misguided charge,” Bailey said in a statement Friday without directly naming the president.
“Rather than attacking us and lobbing baseless charges at physicians, our leaders should be following the science and urging adherence to the public health steps we know work—wearing a mask, washing hands and practicing physical distancing,” Bailey concluded in her statement.
The AMA, the country’s largest doctors group, has criticized the Trump administration before. In August, the group blasted the federal government's guidance that asymptomatic individuals do not need to be tested for the coronavirus, warning it would like to a spike in cases.
Bailey noted Friday that coronavirus cases in the U.S. hit record highs this week, recording roughly 97,000 new infections on Friday alone. The figure broke the previous record of 88,521 new coronavirus cases, which had been set on Thursday.