An opinion survey is being used by opponents of the health care reform bill currently being considered by the U.S. Congress. A summary of the survey’s results states:
“About 25 percent of respondents were primary care physicians (defined as internal medicine and family medicine in this case), and of those, 46 percent indicated that they would leave medicine — or try to leave medicine — as a result of health reform.”
“Try to leave medicine”? What is this “try to leave”? Is the the medical profession an organized crime family? If physicians truly want to abandon the practice of medicine and try take up another profession instead, they’ll do it… in the middle of a severe economic slump when huge numbers are looking for work and unable to find it. Does trying to leave medicine mean looking at the job market and deciding that staying put looks like a good idea after all?
These survey results remind me of something my 4 year-old daughter said this week when I took her to the bathtub. She didn’t want to be clean. She looked up at me from under a furrowed brow and declared, “I am never, ever going to take a bath again.”
“Yes, dear,” I said to her, “I know, but now it’s time to get into the tub. There, there.”
My daughter took a bath, even though she said she was never going to do it. She was throwing a tantrum just to let me know how upset she was. Now, 46 percent primary care physicians responding to this survey may well have said that they’ll quit (or “try”) medicine if health care reform legislation is passed. So…
What’s that, doctors? You’re going to run away from home? Yes, dears. I know, but now it’s time to pass health care reform. There, there.
On top of the obviously slanted report, I wouldn’t trust this survey any further than I could push it with my mind.
Although the firm says “The survey sample was randomly selected from a physician database of thousands,” that original database was not a random or otherwise representative sample, but rather taken from the set of doctors who choose to work with one job search firm, Medicus. On top of that, the response rate for the sample was scarcely larger than 50%, and the people in this non-representative group who chose to respond to the survey would tend to be more motivated on the issue. Medicus can’t get its own story straight. In the two methodological pages I’ve linked to, Medicus says once about 25% of the sample are primary care practitioners, and somewhere else reports the share of primary care practitioners is 35%.
Then, in order to get the conclusion they were looking for, Medicus focuses just on the opinions of primary care practitioners. But from the overall unrepresentative motivated sample, only a MINORITY of respondents agree that health care reform as currently envisioned by the Congress will harm their quality practice, a MINORITY of respondents say health care reform will harm their career satisfaction, and a MINORITY of respondents say health care reform will reduce the quality of medical care in general. A whopping 70% of respondents said the passage of health care reform as currently envisioned by Congress would have NO effect on their professional plans.
Not that I believe those numbers are actually representative of doctors’ opinion, since the methodology of the survey is so flawed. But even if you did think the methodology was sound, you’d come to the OPPOSITE conclusion of what Medicus declared.
What a hack job.
This may come as a surprise to many of you, but people who have invested ten to fifteen years and hundreds of thousands of dollars to become doctors have the same right to earn a good living from their professional labors as do politicians, corporate executives and auto workers.
This government couldn’t even control the amount of ‘bonuses’ paid to the people who ran their companies so poorly that we, the tax payers, had to bail them out – what gives them the right to decide what the physicians’ time and talent is worth?
Well, this may come as a surprise to you, dprosenthal, but some of us think the Nazi doctor Josef Mengele was a bad man.
Woo! Taking offense apropos of nothing sure is fun!
i just read a poll saying one hundred percent of participants were in favor of the single payer system.
o.k. it was a poll of only one person, me. but there was 100% response and 100% in favor. polls are great when you can manipulate them to suit your purpose.
i just read another poll that said 100% of republicans will leave the country if the health care bill becomes law.
not really, that was the wishful thinking poll.
You know, ramone, a recent survey indicates 100% approval* of the methodology of your poll.
(*survey with 100% completion rate based on a simple random sample of Irregular Times writers named Jim)
….any further than I could push it with my mind….
And I’m figuring that wouldn’t be too far, based on observations of your mind’s power.
Just kidding! left yourself open on that one!
hahaha
did you hear the one about the guru and the republican? seems the guru was holding a seminar that involved the power of the mind. he focused all his concentration on a rock and it evolved into a beautiful statue. the republican was amazed, “how did you do that?”. “mind over matter, my son.”, replied the guru. so, the republican picked out a rock and concentrated all his thoughts. park maintenance now chase pigeons off his statue as the rock watches over it’s creation.
UUUU soooo phunnie!
And so original too!
Give yourself a pat on the back and some free government handouts as a reward.
A man was walking on the beach one day and he found a bottle in the sand.
He decided to open it. Inside was a genie!
The genie said, “I will grant you three wishes and three wishes only.”
The man thought about his first wish and decided, “I want ten million dollars transferred to a Swiss bank account.”
POOF! Ten million dollars was his.
Next he wished for a Ferrari, red in color.
POOF! There was the car sitting in front of him.
He asked for his final wish, “I wish I was irresistible to women.”
POOF! He turned into a box of chocolates.
My doctor can no longer afford to take government health care patients because they keep cutting reimbursement levels to honest doctors. Other doctors and pharmacies are in the same situation. This bill doesn’t help. Our young people are going to inherit a broken, bankrupt, and environmentally-savaged world where everything they say or do is recorded to use against them
doctors refusing patients will not be tolerated much longer. if you enter into medicine to get rich your motives and morals are way out of sync. doctors are just like athletes and drug dealers, there’s a line a mile long waiting to take their place. let them take their marbles and go home. at least they will be able to take their insurance with them into the unemployment line.’
Au contraire, patients with attitudes will soon not be tolerated. Very few doctors are in it to “get rich” – if they were, they’d be plumbers, electricians, union workers, or investment bankers. They go through at least 12 years of training after high school, racking up hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt. They don’t earn a penny until they’re nearly thirty, and probably don’t break even on that education until they’re about 40. If they wash out along the way, the debt doesn’t go away, so the risk is high. During this time, they get 2-4 weeks off per year, working or studying 80+ hours per week the rest of the time. Once they enter private practice, they generate around $1M per year, but most of that goes to office payroll, supplies, building, insurance, and other overhead. Plus, besides seeing patients, they are CEOs in their spare time, because they have to manage staff and payroll, negotiate insurance contracts, and ensure regulatory compliance with the ever-changing laws. The doctors would love to explain to you why they can’t take Medicare, Medicaid, or Tricare (because non of those cover the COST of the visit!), yet many do take a limited number of these patients because they want to do the right thing. As people become more entitlement-minded, many doctors are starting to wonder if starting right out of high school with a $30/hour union job wouldn’t have been a better option (BTW – doctors don’t have pension plans, and most can’t get unemployment because they’re business owners)
So, if these claims were true, where are the 46 percent of physicians who have abandoned the practice of medicine, now that health care reform has been passed. I’m looking around, and I don’t see any doctor shortage.
They clearly aren’t true. Dobbs’ figures may be each true for one small slice of doctordom, but they cannot be true for all. For instance, Dobbs refers to doctors not getting pension plans. This isn’t true for doctors who work in hospitals and physician groups, an increasingly large number of doctors. In another instance, Dobbs refers to doctors not “earning a penny until they’re nearly thirty.” A student who graduates from college at the age of 22 and who goes to 4 years of medical school will start earning money during residency at the age of 26… not enough money to grow rich on, but certainly enough money to maintain for the duration of residency in most areas of the country. Dobbs’ rant is full of half truths like this. It is true doctors work hard. It is also true that doctors reap a reward.