Majority Of Doctors Back Public Option: New England Journal Of Medicine Study

A new study finds that a majority of physicians support the creation of a public health care option.

A Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) study published in Monday's New England Journal of Medicine shows that 63 percent of physicians support a health reform proposal that includes both a public option and traditional private insurance. If the additional 10 percent of doctors who support an entirely public health system are included, then approximately three out of four physicians nationwide support inclusion of a public option. Only 27 percent support a private-only reform that would provide subsidies for low-income individuals to purchase private insurance.

Surveying a nationally representative sample of 2,130 physicians across America, researchers Salomeh Keyhani, M.D., M.P.H., and Alex Federman, M.D., M.P.H., from Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City queried physicians about a range of options for expanding health insurance coverage.

"There should be no confusion about where doctors stand in the debate over expanding health insurance coverage: they want reform," said Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. "This survey reveals important information about the perspective of physicians on issues central to the health reform debate. Policy makers should listen to their doctors."

"We found that no matter how you sliced the data, physicians demonstrated majority support for a public health insurance option, regardless of their type of practice or where they live," said Keyhani.

Among those physicians who identified themselves as members of the American Medical Association, 62.2 percent favored both the public and private options. The AMA has opposed a public option, saying that it "threatens to restrict patient choice by driving out private insurers."

A majority of physicians surveyed (58 percent) also supported expanding Medicare eligibility to those between the ages of 55 and 64.

"These results give voice to individual physicians in the national discussion about health reform," said Federman. "Most often we hear the opinions of special interest groups rather than doctors themselves, but we know that Americans want to hear the opinions of doctors like those who treat them. This study lets us hear the unfiltered views of physicians on key elements of health reform and should be useful for lawmakers."

Read the full study here.

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Comments

[Freedom of Logic]

And Im sure some of the opposition are stating, "Yeah so? That's England though and we already know they are a bunch of socialist hippies. They can't tell us what to do!"

[givesflack]

To the Libertarian mindset that Health Reform is government becoming too big to fail . First, the government is as big as it's citizenry and their public needs. They represent the people, corporations represent profits. Government isn't a corporation, although corporations are trying hard to break it up like it is one. Unlike mergers, their easy, they happen over night and during the merger rush during the 80s and 90s, big companies were eating little companies up like tic tacs. They did them without consideration for it's workers and no loyalty to the community or the country. Government has to keep it's business here because this is where their work is, excepting George Bushes reign where he off shored our business to Iraq and to all his private contractor buddies interested in those oil and military markets. Which makes big business all the more heinous, they changed the laws to make mergers easier and reverse years of tort reform in their favor which made them what they are today- too big and unsustainable and greedy. They have also perverted the law in their favor so much so that they aren't punishable for their criminal behavior, like the lawlessness that created the the financial crisis while they pull the string of congress. The time is now to put in place a public option to break the tide of an overcorporatized America.

[Mike Hihn]

Congress has scheduled another 21% cut in Medicare doctor payments, on top of the current 40% cut.

The President offered to cancel the 21% cut, if doctors agree to support his reform. Imagine a politician showing up at your door, saying you must give him your vote or he'll cut your income by 21%. I won't call that fascism, like the Republicans would. It's merely business as usual in our nation's capitol.

The notion of pre-existing conditions is about as wacky as Death Panels and Birthers on the right. Does anyone believe that insurance companies deny pre-existing conditions to pad their profits?

Is that why I can't buy life insurance for my dead father? Or fire insurance after my house catches fire? Insurance company greed?

If you could buy insurance AFTER you got sick, why would anybody be stupid enough to buy insurance BEFORE they got sick?????

Perhaps that's why 57% of likely voters would vote to fire the entire Congress (both parties) and start over. And why there are now more Independents than either Republicans or Democrats.

We've tried mandated coverage and community rating. They failed. That's why HMOs no longer provide a 25-30% savings over insurance companies. Older (pre-medicare) people flocked to HMOs, to save 50% or more over experience-rated premiums. Duh..

So screw up the market, blame the insurance companies, claim the free market failed -- and propose the same failed policies. But only the Birthers are crazy.





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[Merri Rich]

... because doctors are smart :-)

[dimplesmile7]

My doctor also support the public option. This does not get much attention in the MSM. If you don't hate the president and think he is a nazi, communist, socialist, marxist, and muslim, the media want to let you have a say. If you agree with President Obama, they will give you little to no exposure. This is why I am turning off the tv more and more these days.

[justoverit333]

I have recently spoken with several nurses who feel the same way.

[Patrick Demkowski]

Wow. Figure that. Doctors, the key to health care, want a public option for health care reform. Perhaps we should listen to them? Time for for health care for all!

[Mike Hihn]

That's because the President told him he'd cancel the scheduled 21% cut in doctor fees, if they'd support his reform. It's been in all the papers.

Now ask around and see how many doctors totally refuse to accept Medicare patients, which is what they do without a gun to their heads.

[sueinmn]

Itd to the point that a doctor cannot practice medicine with out first permission from the insurance compsanies. Never saw a doctor who took easy to someone else telling them what to do!

[PaxEterna]

Arianna, please keep this story on your post until substantive reform is on the table.

The doctors and the public want a robust public option.

Who else matters if we are really serious about health CARE?

[rad21]

Please bear with me while I offer the following solution once again. We can compare this with what the senate puts forward. White House should negotiate with the Insurance companies. Insure all, no denial of coverage and permit portability. Immediate 30% reduction in premiums and another 20% reduction over next two years. Half the savings to come from Insurance and the other half from the delivery of care. This will reduce healthcare cost from 17% GDP to 11%; making American business competitive in the world. With such a deal, all sides should be on board to sign off on a bill. If the insurance companies do not deliver, the Public Option will deliver by 2012.

For insurance companies, the immediate reduction in premiums will be offset by the new 47 million getting insured with govt / taxpayer help. The reduction in premium costs will help American business and reduce govt subsidies to those who need help. The immediate benefit to working Americans will be a bird-in-hand, if the insurance companies renege on bringing down healthcare costs.

The 47 million presently uninsured are already covered by by those with insurance who pay an effective 17% surcharge on their insurance. The important issue to be alert is that the insurance companies with the blessing (payback) from politicians do not keep the 17% charge for "uncompensated care" while we, the tax payers again pays to subsidize the new beneficiaries.

[rf-hawaii]

" The immediate benefit to working Americans will be a bird-in-hand, if the insurance companies renege on bringing down healthcare costs. "

Cool. So we'll have better coverage that we can't afford. Great.

[sueinmn]

IF they were willing to reform, they would be doing it by now. They are hedging we will lose before they will self refom. We need hard reform as these creeps no longer deserve and sympathy!

[jwredd]

Insurance companies agreeing to a 50% reduction in premiums in exchange for more customers? Right. And if they did agree to it under the threat that if they failed to do so we will enact a public option, doesn't that mean we would be right back to where we are now trying to get a public option? I can't imagine the republicans rolling over at that point.

[Mike Hihn]

Your idea makes the Birthers look like geniuses.

How will 47 million new insured offset a 50% reduction in insurance rates??????

How can somebody "renege" on price controls imposed by force of law? In my universe, one can renege only on something one has voluntarily agreed to.

The best way to reduce insurance premiums is to stop forcing them to subsidize Medicare. Are you aware that both hospitals and doctors serve medicare patients at a loss?

Or how about the 15% of all income taxes (personal and corporate) which now subsidize Medicare? (instead of payroll taxes) (See Medicare Trustee Report signed by Obama's Treasury Secretary.)

If you don't wanrt to "subsidize" poor people, what's your alternative? Let them eat cake?

[LucieLee]

I really don't know what more people need to understand that the public option is popular,

[rf-hawaii]

Surprisingly, Obama explained it so poorly.

Robert Reich did much better:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXFHXqrrJ6g

[00angel]

We have a great medical system in the U.S. Our patients are very satisfied overall. What is broken is the government end of it, Medicare, Medicaid. They have promised services without funds to pay for it, and now try to blame doctors for not providing these services at prices they can afford. They manipulate prices and restrain the "individual genius of man" (Ronald Reagan) so that the system cannot become more efficient, then complain about same lack of efficiency. Doctors work under the most intense legal scrutiny. I challenge any other business to try and survive with the documentation and responsibilities doctors face each day. Yet in all doctors overcome these obstacles and still provide outstanding care, among the finest in the World if not the finest as a whole, and lead the World in research and development. Yet some want to throw all of this away because the government cannot pay for promises they should not have made. Then we may all sink to the mediocrity of a socialized system that we cannot afford.

[JamesSB]

Your argument is a red herring.

Give it up, your fallacies are showing.

[JamesSB]

p.s. its a borderline non-sequitur

[PWM]

Do you think reposting this nonsense in this thread will make it true.

We have a crappy system and preexisting is nothing less than the opportunity to commit murder.

The founding Fathers intended the government to provide for people:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." - Declaration of Independence

The rights to be secured are life, liberty,and the pursuit of happiness. Those rights are violated by the insurance industry who can deny anyone these rights by using the preexisting clause to sentence them to death.

[00angel]

have you read the constitution???

[Peleador]

James Madison disagrees with you -

"If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare,
and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare,
they may take the care of religion into their own hands;
they may appoint teachers in every State, county and parish
and pay them out of their public treasury;
they may take into their own hands the education of children,
establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union;
they may assume the provision of the poor;
they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads;
in short, every thing, from the highest object of state legislation
down to the most minute object of police,
would be thrown under the power of Congress.... Were the power
of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for,
it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature
of the limited Government established by the people of America."

[Guitar63]

"I challenge any other business. . ." - why is it that we make a business out of health? Maybe you can get cancer so that your insurance company can decide it was a pre-existing condition so that they don't have to pay for you. Then you can go bankrupt. Maybe then you will realize that health and lives are more important than money.

[00angel]

that is exactly what keeps our health system as ONe of the top in the world.. Have you ever wonder why wealthy europeans and canadians come to our country for medical treatment WHEN THEY HAVE SERIOUS MEDICAL PROBLEMS???

do you want medical offices to go to bankrupt ??? well, the better they do financially the better your health will be.... and that is the problem with the government... since it is the peoples business and nobody's business at the same time.. nobody care.. and it fails....

that is why socialism "sounds" good... it appeals to "noble' feelings and what it should be.. but in real life... it fails.. because there is no better motivation for human beings than profit.... there is nothing wrong with money... and doctors, nurses, technicians.. also have to take care of their families.... to think that it shouldn't be that way.. and that the public option deprived of monetary benefits will be the answer is being naive.... if in doubt look at Cuba and hospitals for their people.... not the ones Moore visited.. but the real ones where people dies and nobody cares.... :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TD7mLp9j-3k

[StevenLev]

I agree with ooangel's assessment of health care as do all my doctors.

I am not sure how they worded their survey questions or how they selected the doctors to poll.

But my doctors disagree with everything this article states!

Change needs to happen but the best way I have experienced is to make small changes, assess the effect and then make another. Change tort law into a reasonable compensation number (2 times the cost of the procedure, attorneys can only charge the an amount of the procedure). We then need to set standards for deductables and make everyone responsible for their own decisions(­insurance, patients, doctors). Find a way to open up competition for rates and rating doctors and half the battle will be won.

Some Fed programs help short term but eventually cause people to behave as slaves not self reliant. Obama wants long term reliance on government which ends in total reliance and a 21st century form of slavery.

[missdk]

Malpractice insurance only accounts for 1% of medical costs. Tort law isn't the problem.

[00angel]

According to the American Medical Association doctors agree on : ( no explicit public option, and no all doctors are members of the AMA)
Health coverage for all Americans, insurance market reforms that expand choice and eliminate denials for pre-existing conditions, assurance that medical decisions will remain between the patient and physician, medical liability reforms to reduce the cost of defensive medicine, and repeal of the broken Medicare physicians payment formula that threatens seniors’ access to care are among them.

[JamesSB]

THe leadership of the AMA oppose the public option but not its members. Members of the AMA broadly support a public option.

[PWM]

True. Doctors are fed up with preexisting clauses and being forced to watch patients be turned away.

[00angel]

how do you know that??? have you done doctor interviews ???

[HowdyDoody]

The only people standing in the way of a public option are the 15 or so conservative Democrats in the Senate like Baucus, Landrieu, and Kent Conrad. This is a no-brainer, folks! Get rid of them, and we've got a health care bill.

I won't back down on this. These guys gotta go.

[00angel]

so physicians are OK with being government employees.. unbelievable !!

[JamesSB]

Nice try, but your falsehoods are showing.

[00angel]

We have a great medical system in the U.S. Our patients are very satisfied overall. What is broken is the government end of it, Medicare, Medicaid. They have promised services without funds to pay for it, and now try to blame doctors for not providing these services at prices they can afford. They manipulate prices and restrain the "individual genius of man" (Ronald Reagan) so that the system cannot become more efficient, then complain about same lack of efficiency. Doctors work under the most intense legal scrutiny. I challenge any other business to try and survive with the documentation and responsibilities doctors face each day. Yet in all doctors overcome these obstacles and still provide outstanding care, among the finest in the World if not the finest as a whole, and lead the World in research and development. Yet some want to throw all of this away because the government cannot pay for promises they should not have made. Then we may all sink to the mediocrity of a socialized system that we cannot afford.