New survey in NEJM finds that, overall, doctors support a public option

Hi all,

I found this interesting article published by NPR in my daily read. In it, the authors describe that physicians as group have traditionally had difficulties giving an official stand on health care reform. As a medical student, I can definitely see this as being true. From my personal experience, doctors in primary care tend to prefer a public option and those in high-paying specialties tend to be content with the status quo. However, in this article, a recently published survey in the New England Journal of Medicine has found that 63% of doctors favor a mixed system that includes both private and public insurance; an additional 10% favor a single-payer only system. When the public was polled, about 50-70% said that they are in favor of a public option.

What else is interesting is that the majority of the doctors who are members of the American Medical Association (AMA) are in favor of a public option, though the organization itself is opposed to it. The AMA has historically been opposed to health care reform as one of its main objectives is to protect the interests of physicians, not improving patient access or care. Also, I've heard that the AMA only represents about 20% of physicians; in the NPR article, the authors state that less than one-third of physicians belong to the AMA. Most physicians join their own specialty groups. If this is true, then here we have a very powerful lobbying group against a public option who does not actually represent the opinions of its constituents.

Instead of looking to the AMA as the voice of physicians, one can find differing opinions from other medical groups. The American Medical Student Association (AMSA) represents the future physicians of America and has a very firm commitment to universal health care and enstating a single-payer system. However, not every medical student is involved with AMSA.

Just the other day, massive protests against federal spending took place in Washington DC. Given this NPR article stating that the majority of both doctors and the general population actually favor a public option, one has to wonder who exactly these protesters are. Are they simply the loud minority? How do these statistics fit in with what we discussed in class -- that most Americans are happy with their own health coverage?

I have included both the NPR and NEJM articles below:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112818960

http://healthcarereform.nejm.org/?p=1790&query=home

Let's discuss!