Doctors, by a large majority, support adding a government run health insurance program that would compete with private insurance. That’s according to a new survey. What’s been called the public option continues to be one of the most contentious issues in the health care debate, but the survey shows that doctors are already used to dealing with government run insurance.
NPR’s Joseph Shapiro reports.
JOSEPH SHAPIRO: In the survey, nearly three-quarters of doctors said they favor a public option. Co-author Dr. Salomeh Keyhani is a researcher at Mount Sinai School of Medicine.
Dr. SALOMEH KEYHANI (Researcher, Mount Sinai School of Medicine): The results of the study demonstrated that the majority of physicians support a public option in the United States of America.
SHAPIRO: That included the 63 percent who say they’d like to see patients get a choice of public or private insurance and another 10 percent who favor a public option only. They’d like to see a single-payer system. When the public in general is surveyed, support for a public option has run between 50 and 70 percent.
Hmm, the one of the groups involved in the study is a foundation in support of health care reform. I did not look at the actual wording of the study, but the study said doctors preferred dealing with Medicare over dealing with private insurance companies. Most doctors I know hate dealing with Medicare, due to the paperwork and the low payments that sometimes don’t even come close to the actual cost of treatment. Of the many doctors my wife and I know, we only know of one that would like to see public option, most are afraid of what the public option would look like give their horrible experience with dealing with Medicare.
Note that the poll consisted of American Medical Association members in contrast to the IBD poll. Only 18% of physicians are members of the AMA. That percentage is dropping as they take on policies that are in strong conflict with the majority of physicians.
Just moments ago I heard on the news that 45% of doctors may leave the profession if the current health care reform passes.
There are lies and then there are statistics …
Yes there are lies and statistics and then there are lies when the statistics go the wrong way. On a somewhat unrelated note, I was in the car yesterday and heard a commercial for AARP. They were touting that they did not support democrat or republican healthcare proposals. No, they were working to support their members! Ha, Ha, Ha!!!!!!! Talk about running for the center strip when everything busts loose. Their printed material still trumpets all the “bad things” conservatives are saying and how only a bigger govt will protect seniors. No doubt they have felt the sting of members cancelling their memberships.
GIGO. The AMA is mostly government doctors, university professors, reasearchers, up East academic types, and corporate wonks–now only about 15% of the workforce. Most docs look to their speciality society. Our state medical society is having a called meeting to sever ties with the AMA. We will be the last state to not require AMA membership to belong to the state society, which does a great job of representing us and our patients. In the olden days, just about all state societies required it and it was a black mark for a doctor not to belong. Not any more. We are angry that the AMA has gone over to the dark side and supporting bills that will harm our patients and the nation.
#3 – I also heard that another poll of physicians showed only 34% support for a public option. Who is fooling whom?
I’m one of the many physicians who are not members of the AMA, I do not support the AMA’s position on the administration’s healthcare proposals, and I fall within the reported 45% of those who may leave the profession.
Adjusted for inflation, my remuneration – all of it, salary and benefits, is less than I made when I started in private practice in 1993. And I started out at the lower end of the scale of what general internists made even then – all this despite the fact that I practice (now) in a university town and am in some demand by patients who specifically request to see me. At some point the balance between psychological pressures and demands on personal and family time on the one hand, and enjoyment in the practice of medicine, the sense of calling and duty and, yes, the remuneration – tips.
Ditto what my medical colleagues have said above. The AMA is no longer representative of US physicians, and I don’t see anywhere near a majority of MDs that I work with on a day-to-day basis in my admittedly liberal neck of the woods that are in favor of a public option. I resigned my AMA membership years ago over their slant, and internal hanky-panky (Google “Sunbeam + AMA”). My specialty society has publicly broken with the AMA over their rush to “get the best deal possible” from the administration, and even my state medical association is neutral–again, in a very blue state.
Bottom line: the AMA [i]doesn’t[/i] speak for me, or a lot of American docs.
None of the doctors I know support Obamacare. But they have basically thrown up their hands because the only group that gets any press is the AMA. The real doctors feel totally isolated and ignored on the healthcare issue. They should be the first persons whose position is considered.
Academic doctors and people already on salaries support increasing those salaries through government grants. Those who’s ability to make a living is at least somewhat based on their efficiency of practice and the volume/reimbursement per patient are against Obamacare.
So, if we want more academic and research doctors, and less family doctors or doctors that normal people can actually see, then let’s go with Obamacare.
People need to hear what Todd Granger is saying. Only about 2% of medical students are going into general internal medicine. Internists handle the sicker, more complicated patients – e.g., a diabetic with renal disease, heart disease, peripheral vascular disease, etc. These patients are totally inappropriate for a 5 minute family physician time slot. The lifestyle of an internist stinks – ever increasing paperwork and decreasing remuneration. “Pay for performance” will hit them hard. It should be labeled as “not pay for arbitrary ‘performance’ measures that require hiring an actuarist to follow.” In our town, the internists are older (and wiser of course!) and a lot would have retired if not for the economic down turn. When the economy recovers and especially when if Obamacare is pushed through, the specialty will be devastated.