59% of Doctors Are Foolish

A new survey suggests that a majority of doctors foolishly think the answer to America's health care system is socialized medicine:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - More than half of U.S. doctors now favor switching to a national health care plan and fewer than a third oppose the idea, according to a survey published on Monday.

The survey suggests that opinions have changed substantially since the last survey in 2002 and as the country debates serious changes to the health care system.

Of more than 2,000 doctors surveyed, 59 percent said they support legislation to establish a national health insurance program, while 32 percent said they opposed it, researchers reported in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine.

The 2002 survey found that 49 percent of physicians supported national health insurance and 40 percent opposed it.

"Many claim to speak for physicians and represent their views. We asked doctors directly and found that, contrary to conventional wisdom, most doctors support national health insurance," said Dr. Aaron Carroll of the Indiana University School of Medicine, who led the study.

"As doctors, we find that our patients suffer because of increasing deductibles, co-payments, and restrictions on patient care," said Dr. Ronald Ackermann, who worked on the study with Carroll. "More and more, physicians are turning to national health insurance as a solution to this problem."

I'm guessing that none or almost none of these doctors have ever worked in a nationalized health care system or else they wouldn't be so enthusiastic. If they think it's tough to give proper care to a patient of an HMO, wait until there are months-long waits for elective procedures and skyrocketing taxes to pay the costs.

And wait until doctors' salaries are determined by some government hack and medicine becomes just another government job .