Investor's Business Daily: 45% of Doctors Would Consider Quitting

[Qutzupalotl]

45% Of Doctors Would Consider Quitting If Congress Passes Health Care Overhaul

By TERRY JONES, INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Posted 09/15/2009 07:09 PM ET

Two of every three practicing physicians oppose the medical overhaul plan under consideration in Washington, and hundreds of thousands would think about shutting down their practices or retiring early if it were adopted, a new IBD/TIPP Poll has found.
The poll contradicts the claims of not only the White House, but also doctors' own lobby — the powerful American Medical Association — both of which suggest the medical profession is behind the proposed overhaul.
.....
The AMA, in fact, represents approximately 18% of physicians and has been hit with a number of defections by members opposed to the AMA's support of Democrats' proposed health care overhaul.
• Four of nine doctors, or 45%, said they "would consider leaving their practice or taking an early retirement" if Congress passes the plan the Democratic majority and White House have in mind.

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=506199
___________________

I hesitate to post this link because this publication leans hard to the right. This was the same outfit that stopped reading HR 3200 at page 16, when they misread the definition of grandfathering as saying you couldn't change your private coverage after the plan takes effect. They never issued a retraction that I know of.

I'm posting this mainly to point out that the AMA does not speak for all doctors -- a profession often reflexively resistant to Democratic proposals. My suspicion is that most of the doctors protesting are just blowing smoke. I mean, what are they going to do instead? Nevertheless, if a large number do quit, we have another problem to address.

[mmonk]

1. Looks like corporate propaganda to me.

[L0oniX]

2. I'm calling bull shit on this one.

[redqueen]

3. Investors Business Daily

:spray:

Good one!

[MichellesBFF]

43. Hey!

Isn't this the outfit that said that Stephen Hawking would die if he was in the NHS?

[redqueen]

44. Yep!

http://wonkette.com/410415/important-editorial-if-stephen-hawking-lived-in-the-uk-he-would-be-dead

[skipos]

4. Good, more jobs for other people. nt

[Historic NY]

5. Well they can always empty bed pans. Nurses do the real work any way for less pay.

[county worker]

6. What are they going to do for income if they quit ?

Most doctors I worked with over the years can't do anything else well.

[NJCher]

7. I find it hard to believe

It's a lot more practical and in keeping with GOP strategies to consider this might be their response to the research last week that says doctors support the public option.


Cher

[Arugula Latte]

8. Riiiiiiiiiiiight. Suuuuuure they are.

:rofl:

[texasleo]

9. Any doctor willing to go on record should have his/her license revoked.

[Ruby the Liberal]

10. Yet 77% want a public option

*yawn*

[Qutzupalotl]

16. 77% of AMA members,

which IBD says represents 18% of physicians.

[emulatorloo]

IBD Lies -- see my post about Stephen Hawking below. n/t

[Qutzupalotl]

41. I know. I included one in bold in my OP.

I'm not presenting this as factual, just to inform us of possible arguments we might encounter. I've changed the title of the OP to give warning of source.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

11. This may be of use here: Fox runs wild with "not scientific" IBD poll

Several Fox News media figures highlighted a recent Investor's Business Daily/TIPP poll which found that "wo of every three practicing physicians oppose the medical overhaul plan under consideration in Washington, and hundreds of thousands would think about shutting down their practices or retiring early if it were adopted." However, according to statistician Nate Silver, the poll is "simply not credible," and Fox News itself acknowledged that the poll is "not scientific."

Nate Silver: Poll is "simply not credible." In a September 16 post to his blog FiveThirtyEight.com, Silver listed five reasons why the IBD poll should be "completely ignore":

1. The survey was conducted by mail, which is unusual. The only other mail-based poll that I'm aware of is that conducted by the Columbus Dispatch, which was associated with an average error of about 7 percentage points -- the highest of any pollster that we tested.

2. At least one of the questions is blatantly biased: "Do you believe the government can cover 47 million more people and it will cost less money and th quality of care will be better?". Holy run-on-sentence, Batman? A pollster who asks a question like this one is not intending to be objective.

3. As we learned during the Presidntial campaign -- when, among other things, they had John McCain winning the youth vote 74-22 -- the IBD/TIPP polling operation has literally no idea what they're doing. I mean, literally none. For example, I don't trust IBD/TIPP to have competently selected anything resembling a random panel, which is harder to do than you'd think.

4. They say, somewhat ambiguously: "Responses are still coming in." This is also highly unorthodox. Professional pollsters generally do not report results before the survey period is compete.

5. There is virtually no disclosure about methodology. For example, IBD doesn't bother to define the term "practicing physician", which could mean almost anything. Nor do they explain how their randomization procedure worked, provide the entire question battery, or anything like that.

Read More: http://mediamatters.org/research/200909170025

[Qutzupalotl]

20. Thank you. This is what I was looking for.

A facebook friend posted the poll. Now I have a response. :)

[Lone_Star_Dem]

28. Sure thing. I just happened to have read this the other day.

Here's the fivethirthyeight link as well.

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/09/ibdtipp-doctors-poll-is-not-trustworthy.html

On edit: Here's another thing you can smack them with.

Overall, a majority of physicians (62.9%) supported public and private options (see Panel A of graph). Only 27.3% supported offering private options only. Respondents — across all demographic subgroups, specialties, practice locations, and practice types — showed majority support (>57.4%) for the inclusion of a public option (see Table 1). Primary care providers were the most likely to support a public option (65.2%); among the other specialty groups, the “other” physicians — those in fields that generally have less regular direct contact with patients, such as radiology, anesthesiology, and nuclear medicine — were the least likely to support a public option, though 57.4% did so. Physicians in every census region showed majority support for a public option, with percentages in favor ranging from 58.9% in the South to 69.7% in the Northeast. Practice owners were less likely than nonowners to support a public option (59.7% vs. 67.1%, P<0.001), but a majority still supported it. Finally, there was also majority support for a public option among AMA members (62.2%).


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

[redqueen]

21. Thanks for posting that... it's nowhere near scientific. (nt)

[Lone_Star_Dem]

34. No, it's not.

If you want a laugh you can browse through some of the TIPP/IBD polls.

http://www.tipponline.com/

Their agenda is showing.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

12. So, what the hell are they going to do then?

:shrug:

I vote for "blowing smoke". The article doesn't even address WHY these doctors might quit if Obama's HCR proposal goes through. What gives? I would think most providers would be supportive of many of the provisions in the reform proposal(s), particularly if malpractice reform is included. This doesn't pass the "smell test".
:freak:

[supernova]

13. We were always going to have to overhau medical education too

along with the HC delivery system.

Changing over to a more patient-centered payment model will also create changes in the type of person who wants medical training.

Let the folks who are in it primarily for the $$ leave over time and go do something else. It will mean the AMA will eventually have to get out of the business of regulating who and how many get into medical school. Meanwhile, we can recruit and train more civic-minded doctors.

I think the various flavors of RNs and techs will do just fine.

[grytpype]

14. so don't post bullshit like this

[Qutzupalotl]

35. I changed the headline of my post to give fair warning of the source.

I still think it's important that we be informed of even bullshit polls, so we can formulate a response and not be surprised when this gets thrown at us.

[MarjorieG]

15. Many are making big bucks at specialties, and don't want profits stopped. Not that medicine is the

big payoff it used to be with malpractice insurance, etc. Many others refused to practice with insurance because they weren't reimbursed, so hard to know where it is legit, selfish, not wanting change, but our biggest need is getting the lower payoff and less specialized primary care, community hospitals. They may feel that by the time the kinks are out, they'd be ready to retire and why go through it now.

Hard to know if even the poll legit.

[TriplD]

17. Meanwhile, New England Journal of Medicine reports most do

Majority of doctors back public option
September 16, 12:36 AM - Madison Independent Examiner - Gregory Patin

Do your trust your doctor's judgment when it comes to health care issues? If your answer is yes, then there is a 73 percent chance that you should support a public option in a health care reform bill.

According to a survey of 2130 physicians across America that was done by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (http://www.rwjf.org/) and summarized in Monday's New England Journal of Medicine (http://healthcarereform.nejm.org/?p=1790&query=home), approximately 63 percent of physicians support a health reform proposal that includes a both a public option and private insurance. Almost another 10 percent of doctors support an entirely public option, leaving only about 27 percent that support a private-only reform plan that would subsidize the purchase of private insurance for low-income individuals.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

18. i have considered quitting my job for years too. however considering and doing

are different things

[emulatorloo]

19. INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY? Of "Government Healthcare Would Kill Stephen Hawking" fame?

How Stephen Hawking Proves That Investor's Business Daily's Editorial Page Tells Lies
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/08/how_stehpen_hawking_proves_tha.html

[gratuitous]

22. The AMA is a lobbying organization

And about one in five doctors belongs to it. So it's not quite the undiluted Voice of the Profession that some people think it is.

That being said, the lede on the story is very ambiguously worded: These nameless physicians (who conducted the poll, when, what is the margin of error, etc.) claim to "oppose the medical overhaul plan under consideration in Washington." And which plan would that be, exactly? Horrors! 45% of doctors say they "would consider" leaving the profession. What does that mean? I know that past a certain age, practically every professional "considers" retirement or leaving their practice. Once the pros and cons are weighed, though, they sigh, pull on their socks or stockings, and get ready for another day.

This article fairly reeks of bullshit. I guess Investor's Business Daily doesn't have a very high estimate of its readership's intelligence.

[xxqqqzme]

23. They probably only polled

'reconstruction' surgeons.

[Obamanaut]

24. If they do quit, and this cuts back severely on availability of health

care providers - can the 40,000 plus deaths a year still be blamed on lack of insurance?

[apnu]

25. Bullshit (nt)

[abluelady]

26. Sounds Bogus to Me

But just imagine seeing a doctor who cared more about their patient than their paycheck!

[Inuca]

27. 45% would consider leaving their practices or retiring?

This is absurd BS. As others have said, give up their practice and do what? If it means some other form of practicing medicine other than private practice, I am fine with that. If it means that they will give up medicine altogether and "early retirement" ... what is the average age of doctors out there? 55? I doubt it. If they want to retire at 40 it means they are making way too much money now. Silly!

[robinlynne]

29. WTF? docs I know, including very rich ones support single-payer!

[robinlynne]

30. Maybe that is 45% of the 20 doctors they chose to interview?

[Jack Rabbit]

31. Do you have a reliable source?

If so, please post and thank you in advance.

[Qutzupalotl]

36. No.

:)

[madokie]

32. bullshit and I've got a picture to prove it

[Qutzupalotl]

37. That is the second biggest pile of bullshit I've seen today.

:)

[Cleita]

33. More astroturf. A recent poll that was published on DU and also aired on

MSNBC stated that 65% of doctors wanted a public option and another 10% favored Medicare for all. That is 75% of the doctors want meaningful health care reform. I don't have time right now to look up the poll. On a personal note, I work for a doctor and he dropped his AMA membership because he found them too conservative and their articles in JAMA not to ring true a lot of the time. So this should tell you that article isn't accurate if that is who they are citing as their source. My own suspicion is that if you research who wrote the article and the author's background, you will find it leads directly back to some health insurers lobbying firm's publicist who planted the article in that publication so it would look legitimate. Like I said I don't have time right now to research because I have to get ready to go to work.

[napi21]

38. I don't buy this. EVERY other poll says the exact oppposit!

Even common sense tells me this can't be right. I don't care how many polls you take, you will not find ANY Docs who love arguing with ins co's for treatment for their patients! It costs them ALL more and in many circumstances, they have to hire 1 or more extra people just to deal with the ins co's and their games.

I have no idea how they asked their questions in this poll. Usually there is at least a snippit of truth before the results of a poll is released. My guess is the question went something like this: "Do you support the HC bill as it is in DC right now, or would you want chanages?" All the Docs I've heard, on almost every different cabel & radio show say the same thing. They want something done about malpractice ins. rates. This was a topic on MSNBC this AM. It was a great diuscussion, and all the Docs agreed that only tort reform won't cure the problem. I agree with the Docs on this one. $200,000 a year is WAY TOO HIGH! All I mean by all of this is that if the question were phrased the way I suggested, I can see a high % of Docs saying they aren't really happy with the bill as it is right now. The "They would close their practice" is pure BS!

[kstewart33]

39. Please. Investor's Business Daily?

Have you actually read it. I used to subscribe to it for stock info and analysis.

Their editorial page makes the WSJ ed page look like Daily Kos.

Their ed page is joined at the hip with their news reporting and their polling.

Their polls are ridiculous.

[Jim__]

40. Would consider?

BFD! I consider quitting my job every day. So far, I haven't.

[Warpy]

42. It's a hard right publication that polled their physican subscribers

so I'm a little surprised they only found 45% were fear driven greedheads.

Most doctors out there, something like 80% of them, really want universal single payer, a Canadian style system that cuts out the middleman and cuts the time they have to spend on the phone trying to cajole bloodless bean counters into allowing them to treat their patients.

Only a few docs near retirement will quit, and even they will re enter a limited practice. That's my prediction, and I'll stand by it.

[maglatinavi]

45. physicians

I read about a group identifying physicians as mad and who are for public option. I think that they are going to have some kind of activity in Washington or they already had... the poll is bs... period ... :thumbsdown:

[BlooInBloo]

46. Pure, unmitigated bullshit. A *REAL* study was done by the NEJOM.

[liberal N proud]

47. This after a report earlier this week that a majority of Doctors favored

health care reform.

I don't have a link but I recall something earlier this week about a large majority favor single payer.