Key Findings from The Medicus Firm Survey
Physician Support of Health Reform in General
• 62.7% of physicians feel that health reform is needed but should be implemented in a more targeted, gradual way, as opposed to the sweeping overhaul that is in legislation.
• 28.7% of physicians are in favor of a public option.
• 3.6% of physicians prefer the “status quo” and feel that the U.S. health care system is best “as is.
Health Reform and Primary Care Physicians
• 46.3% of primary care physicians (family medicine and internal medicine) feel that the passing of health reform will either force them out of medicine or make them want to leave medicine.
Health Reform, Public Option, and Practice Revenue/Physician Income
• 41% of physicians feel that income and practice revenue will “decline or worsen dramatically” with a public option.
• 30% feel income will “decline or worsen somewhat” with a public option.
• 9% feel income will “improve somewhat” with a public option, and 0.8% feel income will “improve dramatically” with a public option.
Health Reform, Public Option, and Physician Supply
• 72% of physicians feel that a public option would have a negative impact on physician supply, with 45% feeling it will “decline or worsen dramatically” and 27% predicting it will “decline or worsen somewhat.
• 24% of physicians think they will try to retire early if a public option is implemented.
• 21% of physicians would try to leave medicine if a public option is implemented, even if not near retirement age at the time.
Health Reform and Recommending Medicine to Others as a Career
• 36% of physicians would not recommend medicine as a career, regardless of health reform.
• 27% would recommend medicine as a career but not if health reform passes.
• 25% of physicians would recommend medicine as a career regardless of health reform.
• 12% would not recommend medicine as a career now but feel that they would recommend it as a career if health reform passes.
Physician Survey: Health Reform?s Potential Impact on Physician Supply and Quality of Medical Care
Keep Up the Pressure, America: Flood Congress with Calls, E-Mails
RUSH: Let’s go to the audio sound bites from yesterday afternoon, last night, and this morning.VAN SUSTEREN: Rush Limbaughdoes something on air he has only done one other time.PERGRAM: Rush Limbaugh had put out the word to have people flood the phone system.BLITZER: Rush Limbaugh, who urged callers to complain to Congress.
BASH: Rush Limbaugh told his listeners to call in. KARL: On the radio, Rush Limbaugh doing something he rarely does, urging his listeners to call members of Congress. MEADE: Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh urged listeners to call the U.S. Capitol. KILMEADE: Phone lines were jammed up on Capitol Hill yesterday because Rush Limbaugh said here are some phone numbers. INGRAHAM: When Rush says something like that, I mean, when he says call that is basically a meltdown of the communication system on Capitol Hill. HENNEBERG: The phones being jammed to conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh giving out numbers on his radio show and website. RUSH: All right, it’s even better or worse, depending on your point of view, than you’ve been told. It was so bad that people inside couldn’t call out, either. They were having to use their cell phones to get out of there. I know a couple people who are journalists, and they said they couldn’t get through to their secret sources and their secret sources inside the Capitol couldn’t reach them. They had to go outside, use a cell phone or something. I don’t see any reason to stop this. In fact, I don’t think you have let up. I think I saw on Fox this morning that the phone lines are not as busy as they were, but more often than not you are going to get a busy signal. We may as well keep the pressure ramped up because they do not have the votes, and there is no reconciliation bill. There isn’t. Heritage has it. They have not been able to write it. There is a lot going on with this. Make no mistake about this. What they really want is to pass the Senate bill. That’s the simplest way to get it to Obama to sign by Saturday so he can head off to wherever it is he’s going. |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
BREAK TRANSCRIPTRUSH: Remember, now, if they “deem” the Senate bill to have passed, it includes everything in the Senate bill, but none of the changes, because the reconciliation bill is going to be a separate thing. This is why Pelosi needs the reconciliation bill. They want to be able to have it both ways, that they have approved the Senate bill but amended it, which allows the president to sign the Senate bill, and House members to claim that they had wanted it amended but the Senate wouldn’t do it. This is all about putting Harry Reid and Obama on the spit. This is Pelosi taking care of herself. House members can blame the Senate while in the meantime the bill they never voted on but said was voted on is supposedly law. Let me run through this again. Pelosi needs the reconciliation bill because she wants to be able to have it both ways. She wants to be able to say that they deemed the Senate bill to have been passed but that they amended it, which allows the president to sign the Senate bill and everybody’s under the illusion that the amendments, the reconciliation, will go to the Senate and they’ll pass that, sent back, and sent to the president, we got two bills, but it’s not going to happen. What will happen is the president will sign the Senate bill and that’s it, end of story.House members able to claim they had wanted it amended and they did amend it, but the Senate wouldn’t do it. Then House members can blame the Senate while in the meantime the bill they never voted on but said was deemed to have passed supposedly becomes the law of the land. This allows ’em to basically say anything they want, which is exactly the purpose, to get the bill but claim no responsibility for it. That’s why this is dictatorial. This is why this is a dictate. This is not governing. This is not even managing. This is dictatorial. Pelosi and Reid are delivering victory to Obama and their party against the will of the people and in contravention of the Constitution. That’s what this really is all about. So she needs that reconciliation bill in order to get the House members that hate the Senate bill to vote for it. She needs it. And right now they don’t have it. Right now they don’t have any text for it. So I hope that this makes a corrupt, polluted, and very complex circumstance somewhat understandable. Again the two phone numbers. I’m told that there’s been a change here, 877-762-8762 is not answering, no busy signal, just a never-ending ring, is that right? Okay. We called it twice and no busy signal, it’s just not being answered. That means it’s still working, folks, the system is still tied up. The 202-224-3121, still busy. |
![]() |
BREAK TRANSCRIPTRUSH: We got a third number here for you to call, ladies and gentlemen, a third Capitol Hill Switchboard number. It’s very close to the other 202 number. The one you have is 202-224-3121. There’s also 202-225-3121. And it’s busying out as well. So all three of these numbers are busy, which means that you are continuing to melt the circuits in Washington. The phone lines are finite, you can overwhelm them, it’s a little harder to overwhelm an Internet on an e-mail circuit, but phone lines are finite and they can only have so much capacity and we’ve obviously maxed it out here so much so that they’re expecting the max-out to continue the entire week.New Rasmussen polling data: “For the third month in a row, likely Republican nominee Pat Toomey holds a nine-point lead over incumbent Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania’s US Senate race.” Folks, the evidence of an electoral landslide against these liberals is everywhere. Obama came to divide and he’s pulled it off. He’s now at 46 approval, 47 disapproval in Gallup. He is lower than McCain was in the general election. So there’s a landslide brewing out there and this is why these leftists hate the people. This is exactly why. It’s why they’re willing to govern against our will. They know we don’t want anything that they stand for. That doesn’t matter to them. They’re going to try to do it regardless and they’re in the process of doing it. I have infinite faith in the country and faith in the people who live here that they’re just not going to put up with it. We’re not just going to lie down, bend over, and succumb to this. It just isn’t going to happen. One way or the other, this is not going to be the law of the land, but we have to make that reality come true, and we’re working on these names. I’m still trying to do all of the due diligence to make sure I need to publish these names and numbers on the website without incurring any kind of mistake or problem, so I’ll probably do of that after the program. |
![]() |
END TRANSCRIPT |
Related articles
- Limbaugh sides with George Will and calls Obama ‘an affirmative action hire’ (rawstory.com)
- Rush Limbaugh blames Obama for Empire State Building shooting (deathandtaxesmag.com)
- Whatever happened to the public option? (washingtonpost.com)