Investor's Business Daily Publishes Ludicrous Poll Claiming 45% Of Doctors Would Quit Over Reform

Hey, kids! Have you heard the one about the poll that indicates that 65% of doctors are against health care reform, and that 45% of doctors hate it so much that they would totally go Galt, quit the lucrative medical profession altogether, and live off the land like the noble Cherokee? Yeah, well, you can all calm down, because that poll is crazy.

Said findings were commissioned and reported by Investor's Business Daily, which has been responsible for some serious lulus of late. The Awl's Alex Balk points out that the publication's previous contribution to the health care reform debate was to assert that "if Stephen Hawking lived in England, the death panels would have killed him by now." It was a bold assertion, especially considering the fact that Hawking does live in England, and credits that nation's National Health Service for the provision of "large amount of high-quality treatment without which I would not have survived." Its editors are also the geniuses who brought us the poll that insisted that Senator John McCain would win the youth vote in the 2008 presidential campaign to the tune of 74-22, results that can only be achieved if you restrict your polling sample to the staff of McCainBlogette.

Anyway, Nate Silver spits hot fire all over this new nonsense, pointing out that, among other faults, the IBD poll was conducted by mail, that the paper reported its results before all the responses were in, that the questions were not objective, and that terms like "practicing physician" were not clearly defined.

My advice would be to completely ignore this poll. There are pollsters out there that have an agenda but are highly competent, and there are pollsters that are nonpartisan but not particularly skilled. Rarely, however, do you find the whole package: that special pollster which is both biased and inept. IBD/TIPP is one of the few exceptions.

RELATED:
IBD/TIPP Doctors Poll Is Not Trustworthy [FiveThirtyEight]
45% Of Doctors Will Not Quit Practicing If Health Care Reform Happens [The Awl]

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Comments

[Prakosh]

I took a free trial about seven years back read the editorial page and told them to stick it. They were baffled that I wouldn't take their newspaper just because they wrote right wing garbage on their editorial page. The first rule of journalism is you can write what ever you want about me as long as you spell my name right. This means that all attention even negative attention is better than no attention at all. And that is why I wonder about these kinds of stories, they plug a newspaper that few have heard about and this negative attention is actually good for. The same with all the senseless Sarah Palin stories. They draw attention to a person who a smarter approach would give absolutely no attention to whatsoever. But as long as it generates hits it is seen as good for the site even when it is not good for the cause. I agree with RepublicansRejected, AH is probably still a conservative.

[desertman]

Think this through a bit. If the expense curve is "bent back" as I've heard it put.... who will pay for this?

Healthcare is not a right. It’s a service provided by someone who chose it as a means to make a living and fulfill all of the aforementioned responsibilities for themselves and theirs. If it is a fundamental right, what would happen if no one chose to practice it voluntarily?

Would the government have to force people to study medicine to become doctors, nurses, orderlies, EMTs, medical researchers, hospital administrators, etc.? How would the government ensure this fundamental right then? Or a more plausible scenario might be if all doctors and/or nurses and/or support staff decided to go on strike. What about your rights then? A service cannot be considered a fundamental right if the right can’t be enforced. And it can’t be enforced if providers suddenly exercise their right not to provide it anymore.

The answer to cost of course will be what will be provided will be less than we have become accustomed to.

[Julia Bailey]

You have built a big straw man. Easy to knock down.

"what would happen if no one chose to practice it voluntarily?"

You don't give any reason or evidence this might happen. Its certainly not the case, even in countries with universal health coverage and all the doctors work for the government (like the UK)

[Prakosh]

And Canada and Germany and France.

What if no one wanted to dig ditches.

We would import a bunch of ditch diggers.

What if no one wanted to be doctors.

We would import a bunch of doctors.

Have you been to a doctor lately, many of them have been imported as well.

Problem is that most people graduating from medical school today already don't want to practice medicine they want to get rich, so they specialize in things we all need like plastic surgery and installing stomach clips.

[WASanford]

Where did the guy in the picture get the smock he's wearing? OH, I get it, he bought it at target.

[Jaloysiusm]

Oh, so nice to hear from the finance industry on this. How do you guys find the time off from creating great depressions?

[wagadog]

In the prediction market, the only people that got it right on the housing bubble and the upcoming banking crisis -- pre-2005 -- were Roubini and The Economist.

If you are investing, you have to stay away from the ideologically motivated publications and advisors -- and run screaming from crass self-serving manipulators like Cramer and GS brokers.

Listen to the people who've been right in the past about what is happening in the present.

For my money, The Economist is the publication to read. Not WSJ, and certainly not IBD.

[rubberstamp]

ha! the Steven Hawking thing is brilliant

[mcmutter]

IBD was also certain McCain would win the election. They know nothing.

[desertman]

Interesting because in the same edition in the "Managing for Success" on page A8, they are advocating ethics training for wayward CEOs. But, I assume you've never read the publication.....

[tiredofthesameoldstuff]

Advocating ethics for wayward ceos was also discussed by other publicans even the Harvard business school got in the news for their mention of an ethics program. Thing is very few if any of the business students signed up for it.

[karinova]

Apples to oranges.
"Advocacy" (or whatever) isn't trend prediction.
The point is very simple: their polling isn't reliable.

[billobasher]

My Doctor supports single payer. I was shocked when she told me that.

[billobasher]

Do right wingers EVER stop lying?

[DestinationsUnknown]

Murdoch Students-

We were warned:

Australians warned us not to allow Rupert Murdoch to infiltrate our free press standards

England warned us not to allow Rupert Murdoch to infiltrate our free press standards

Sir Richard Branson said something like "if we let him, Murdoch will destroy democracy".

We ignored Australia and England- look at the dumb down we got!

WSJ- Dumb it Down President!

Wall Street Journal- Once the most trustworthy news in the WORLD

Pitiful and shameful

WSJ/Murdoch: Dumb it Down Mr. President!

The WORLD TRUSTS Jimmy Carter!

TRUST - something that is not BOUGHT!

[urweatherman]

Its no more ludicrous a claim than anything that you write about Mr. Linkins!

[Charles Allen]

[Citation needed]

[larry278]

Now I have a clue to why Investors Business Daily isn't trying to occupy the niche the WSJ abandoned when it started to become a general interest publication. It looks like the UK's Financial Times can continue to occupy the niche as America's business newspaper of record without being obliged to share its niche with an American business newspaper.

[chris stl]

IBD = Drudge report. Caters to the right and Obama haters on Wall-street,

[nonofyabusiness]

This isn't a poll. Its a hand job

[ECB]

HA !

[urweatherman]

Sounds as if you are an expert on both subjects!

[MacGregor57]

If Sarah Palin doesn't read IUD then it must be a bad rag.

[jimf1673]

Would you agree with me that when Rupert Murdoch buys any print publication, such as the "Wall Street Journal," over a relatively short period of time, the publication looses most of its credibility, and then becomes only another conveyance for expressing his right wing views, no longer strictly factual reporting? The WSJ was once the standard for business news. Not anymore. I'm all for free speech. But I'm not for free lies.