Mount Sinai Poll Shows Physicians Are in Support for a Public Option

In the hopes of understanding out how doctors viewed the issue of a public option — a government-run health insurance plan similar to Medicare, Mount Sinai faculty, Salomeh Keyhani, MD, MPH, and Alex D. Federman, MD, MPH, conducted a random survey of 2,130 doctors.

As health care reform dominated the nation’s headlines last summer, Department of Medicine faculty members Salomeh Keyhani, MD, MPH, and Alex D. Federman, MD, MPH, administered a random survey to 2,130 doctors to gain a greater understanding of how doctors viewed the issue of a public option — a government-run health insurance plan similar to Medicare.

Conducted by phone and mail between June and September 2009, the poll found that physicians strongly supported the public option.
“Nearly three-quarters of physicians supported some form of a public option, either alone or in combination with private insurance options,” Dr. Keyhani said. Support was the same for all types of doctors, whether they were from rural or urban communities.

Physician support was closely tied to doctors’ prior experiences with Medicare, which most reported as positive. Most physicians expressed concern over the care of uninsured patients. They anticipated that some form of public option would help ensure that most people had health insurance coverage.