As Obama pointed out in his speech last week, the U.S. has been attempting to reform its health care for many years. In years past, the opposition of physicians has been partially responsible for failure of reform. If these new poll results are any indication, this year may finally be the year that we get health care reform. The poll was conducted by the New England Journal of Medicine.
When polled, “nearly three-quarters of physicians supported some form of a public option, either alone or in combination with private insurance options,” says Dr. Salomeh Keyhani. She and Dr. Alex Federman, both internists and researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, conducted a random survey, by mail and by phone, of 2,130 doctors. They surveyed them from June right up to early September.
Most doctors — 63 percent — say they favor giving patients a choice that would include both public and private insurance. That’s the position of President Obama and of many congressional Democrats. In addition, another 10 percent of doctors say they favor a public option only; they’d like to see a single-payer health care system. Together, the two groups add up to 73 percent.
When the American public is polled, anywhere from 50 to 70 percent favor a public option. So that means that when compared to their patients, doctors are bigger supporters of a public option.
I think it’s getting more and more likely that we’ll get some meaningful health insurance reform this year. Poll results like these should help put some spines in some of the more spineless Democrats.