Seeing the actual amount of support for health care reform among my colleagues, I just laughed when I saw this report on of a poll from Investors’ Business Daily which claims that 45 percent of doctors would consider quitting if health care reform passed. I took this as yet another example of how the right wingers manage to pull fiction out of their asses and claim it to be fact, and how right wing bloggers will jump upon any claims which support their biases. After all, Investors’ Business Daily is also the site which had a poll showing that McCain would win the youth vote by a margin of 74 percent to 22 percent.
As with any group, the views of physicians are not monolithic. There are some doctors who remain apprehensive about health care reform and fear a potential loss in income. Many of these are also influenced by the same right wing distortions which drive other opposition to health care reform. A handful even agree with the physicians of the 1960’s who opposed the formation of Medicare. It wouldn’t be hard to devise a poll (especially one done by mail as in this case) using leading questions (as this poll did), to come up with a number of doctors sending back a mail in survey opposing reform.
There is widespread recognition of the need for reform among many physicians. Those of us who actually deal with a combination of government programs such as Medicare and private insurance companies have found that the government is easier to deal with, more reliable in sending payments without hassle, and is far less likely to meddle in our medical decisions than private insurance companies. Medicare never drops anyone’s coverage because they become too expensive as private insurance companies often do.
The support for reform among physicians is also seen in the articles of support which have become quite common in the medical journals. The American Medical Association and several other medical organizations have endorsed health care reform. Just earlier this week, The New England Journal of Medicine published a real survey, as opposed to the bogus one conducted by Investors’ Business Daily, which showed that over seven out of ten doctors support having a public option. So much for claims that doctors oppose government involvement in paying for health care.
The results of the poll from Investors’ Business Daily simply fail to pass the smell test–and looking at their shoddy methodology shows why.
There may not be a contradiction between supporting something and not wanting to live with it.
I’ve had a number of friends enthuse about the virtues of Canada (and, yes, partly because of the medical system), but then decide that the much higher paychecks available to them in the US would keep them south of that border. That did not, however, stop them from working to change the US systems to more closely match Canada’s.
Perhaps, but in this case it is simply a bogus poll. It was a mail in poll which most likely came as part of a right wing mailing, and definitely had leading questions. Those who believed the anti-reform tone of the mailing were more likely to send in the poll results. This is essentially no more accurate than having a internet poll on a right wing site.
“That did not, however, stop them from working to change the US systems to more closely match Canada’s.”
Of course the health care reform now being advocated is quite different from Canada’s system.
The poll came from IBD — so of course it was batshit.
Is this the same journal that announced to the effect that if Prof Hawkins lived in Britain he’d be dead by now? Do they ever learn?
Yes, they were one of the same ones spreading that misinformation also. And no, they don’t learn. You simply cannot be a part of the current conservative movement and have any concern for the facts as their world view is entirely built up upon misinformation which they spread to “confirm” their opinions.