Almost Half of US Physicians Favor National Health Insurance
posted 11/26/03
50% of the physicians in the US support legislation to establish national health insurance, according to results of a survey published in the Annals of Internal Medicine for November 18.

Until this report, there have been no broad, across-the-board surveys of randomly selected physicians in all specialties across the country that addressed physician attitudes about the financing of national health care.

In the belief that the success of health care reform may depend on physician support, Dr. Carroll, at Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis, and Dr. Ronald T. Ackermann, with the University of Washington in Seattle, surveyed physicians randomly selected from the American Medical Association Physician Masterfile.

They mailed questionnaires to 3188 physicians, 60% of whom returned them. The authors estimate that their sample could provide an accurate estimate of the views of US physicians with a sampling error of less than 3%.

Of the 1650 respondents, 49% supported legislation to establish national health insurance and 40% opposed it. Primary care providers, those with at least 20% of their patients on Medicaid, practitioners in inner cities and those in non-private practice were more likely than their counterparts to advocate this legislation.

Among those endorsing national health insurance, 61% also supported a single federal payer to achieve that goal. Altogether, 26% were in support of a single payer system.

Even with increases in Medicaid eligibility and the enactment of the State Children's Health Insurance Program, the number of Americans lacking health insurance has grown over the past 25 years.

Dr. Kellermann, at Emory University in Atlanta, maintains that, in addition to its deleterious effects on individuals and families, lack of insurance coverage threatens the financial viability of heath providers.

Source: Diabetes In Control.com: Ann Intern Med 2003;139:795-801,858-859.

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