READ FULL STORY HEREAmericans might be far from united in their views regarding health care reform but at least the medical community seems to be forming a consensus.
The recent results of a New England Journal of Medicine poll of 2,130 doctors as first reported by Reuters finds that 63% are in favor of both public and private health care options. Just 27% said they wanted private options only with one in ten doctors favoring public options exclusively.
A majority of doctors (55%) also would like to see the Medicare age dropped a decade to cover those over the age of 55 according to the poll. Smaller surveys found that 73% of doctors said they ought to care for the uninsured and underinsured. 67% suggested they were willing to accept limits on payments for expensive drugs and procedures as a way to save money and make basic care available to more people.
The top-line results closely mirror those found from an April study of over 5,100 physicians conducted by the American Medical Association. In that poll physicians were broken down into four separate groups; primary care providers, medical specialists or sub-specialists, surgeons or surgical specialists, and all others. The figures were fairly consistent across the board. Medical specialists were most in favor of both private and public options to the tune of 62.4%. Surgeons were the least in favor grouping of physicians but still favored the dual program by 55.6%. Overall 58.3% of physicians favored both private and public option against just 23% who were opposed.
Perhaps as a result of his recent live speech to Congress recent polls have shown a slight up tick in the number of Americans favoring President Obama’s plans to reform health care as well as approving of his handling of the issue overall. Recently released a CNN/Opinion Research poll shows the President back over the 50-percentile threshold in the number of those approving of his handling of health care policy. This is up seven-points from their prior poll conducted before his live speech. Rasmussen also showed a post-speech bounce in the number of Americans supporting Obama’s proposals although recent evidence suggests that things may have settled back down to his pre-speech numbers mired in the mid-40 percentiles.
The President’s plan to overhaul the $2.5 trillion industry to help cover many of the 46-million Americans without health coverage continues to rage on as a hot social topic. Many are against the specifics of the plan whereas others deride it for the increased government control it employs and massive debt it would likely leave. Even with the American Medical Association’s opposition to public option a significant number of its 250,000 represented physicians and doctors at large are never the less well in favor of a public and private option.
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