rssEric Cantor’s Office Promotes Flawed ‘Doctors Will Quit if HCR Passes’ Study
Friday, March 19, 2010 at 9:00 am
- 6 Comments
From yesterday’s Twitter feed of Brad Dayspring, spokesman for the GOP whip’s office:
Dayspring doesn’t mis-attribute the study to the New England Journal of Medicine, but I think Peter Lipson at Forbes does a good job unspooling the unscientific Medicus poll that’s at issue here.
When asked, “How do you think the passage of health reform WITHOUT a public option would affect your professional/practice plans, if at all?” 70% of respondents said, “no change.” It is not reported in this data, but apparently primary care physicians, who made up about a third of respondents, were more likely to say that they would leave medical practice.
I have no doubt that there are unsatisfied physicians out there. This data, gathered unscientifically, hyped by the survey company, and widely picked up by partisan media, is not a reliable measure of doctors’ responses to health care reform.
If the bill passes, I wonder if this sort of hyperbole will be remembered the way Republican claims that Bill Clinton’s 1993 budget would bring about a massive recession are remembered.
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6 Comments
Pingback posted March 19, 2010 @ 10:02 am
[...] Eric Cantor’s Office Endorses Mythical ‘New England Journal of Medicine Report’ – Washington Independent [...]
Comment posted March 19, 2010 @ 2:13 pm
Hmmm. So if the report did exist, how is it mythical exactly? In fact, you write: “Dayspring doesn’t mis-attribute the study to the New England Journal of Medicine.”
So what is the issue?
Comment posted March 19, 2010 @ 4:21 pm
From yesterday:
Media Matters has done yeoman’s work debunking the myth of a “New England Journal of Medicine study” that allegedly found 46 percent of physicians ready to “leave medicine or try to leave medicine” if health care reform passes. The prestigious journal conducted no such study; the numbers were assembled from a non-random study by The Medicus Firm. But perhaps because Investor’s Business Daily produced another slanted poll with a similar number of “doctors ready to quit,” this meme has really taken off.
Comment posted March 19, 2010 @ 7:01 pm
Has anyone realized that a head hunter firm like Medicus has a specific interest in promoting to their potential clients (those hiring doctors) that doctors will be a scarce and valuable commodity and that one may need assistance in finding and hiring the right doctor. Its like trusting the results of a taste test sponsored by Coke that people prefer Coke to Pepsi.
Comment posted March 21, 2010 @ 9:00 pm
Dirk seems to have rudely forgotten to thank you for both finding and supplying specific facts that answer his question.
Please accept my thanks for the work.
Comment posted August 29, 2010 @ 1:11 pm
Hmmm. So if the report did exist, how is it mythical exactly? In fact, you write: “Dayspring doesn’t mis-attribute the study to the New England Journal of Medicine.”
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