Now it is official. A study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine today (1 April 2008) indicates that, for the first time, a majority of US physicians now express support for universal health care coverage.
It isn't even particularly close. In 2002, 49 percent of physicians supported national health insurance; 40 percent opposed it. But in six years, the numbers have changed a lot: 59% support it; 32% are opposed. The percentage of undecided shrank, from 21 to 19 percent; the number in support grew by 10 percentage points.
The Annals have no open source content, so they don't get a link. (If you have access, you already know how to find it.) The news report is here.
The survey included 2,000 physicians.
The support varied by specialty:
The Indiana survey found that 83 percent of psychiatrists, 69 percent of emergency medicine specialists, 65 percent of pediatricians, 64 percent of internists, 60 percent of family physicians and 55 percent of general surgeons favor a national health insurance plan.
I would have expected the support to be roughly inversely proportional to salary, with the lower-paid specialties more in support, with the higher paid ones less in support. I don't have all the data, obviously, but it does not look as though that is the trend. At least not consistently.
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