Nearly Three-Quarters of Doctors Favor a Public Option: Survey

The New England Journal of Medicine released the results of a national survey of physicians on Monday. Of the 2,130 physicians surveyed, nearly 3/4 of them support some type of public option.

A total of 62.9% of physicians said they favored a public option along with private health insurance. Another 9.6% favored a completely government-owned health care coverage system. Total them up, and that's 72.5% who favor some sort of public option.

To be clear, the completely government-owned system would be similar to Canada's or the U.K.'s, and is usually called "Medicare for All" or "Single Payer."

General practitioners or primary care providers were the most likely to support a public option (65.2%). Specialty groups, those in fields that have less regular direct contact with patients, such as radiology or anesthesiology, were the least likely to support a public option, though a majority (57.4%) still did so.

A majority in every part of the country supported a public option, ranging from ranging from 58.9% in the South to 69.7% in the NorthEast. Those old, stodgy, conservative folks IDed as AMA members also showed majority support for a public option (62.2%).

This survey shows that physicians as a whole solidly back the public option. As I've said before, forget about price arguments. Forget about big government arguments. People should not be allowed to die because they lack health insurance. It's not a health issue, it's a moral issue. Obviously, these physicians are remembering their Hippocratic Oath.