Published: September 19, 2009 06:02 pm      

How do doctors chime in on debate on public option?

DUNCAN — Well, last week’s column hardly made a dent in the collection of sticky notes that have served as my memory the past few weeks. So, let me shed some more:

It’s not posted on the Republican Party Web site, but it appears a majority of Americans favor some type of public option being included in a health care reform bill. Depending on what poll you see, 50 to 70 percent support a public option.

But what about doctors? How do the nation’s physicians feel about a public option as part of the health care bill?

Again, it depends on the poll, and two that came out recently had extremely different findings.

Last week, a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation poll of 2,130 doctors showed 73 percent favor some form of public option in a health care bill, while 27 percent don’t want a public option. Of the doctors favoring a public option, 63 percent want a mix of options like the Obama plan proposes, while 10 percent want a public option exclusively.

Also out is a recent poll by Investors Business Daily, which reports that 45 percent of American physicians would quit if there’s a public option in the health reform bill.

Why the divergently different results?

Seems the Investors Business Daily survey was a mail-in poll that drew around 1,000 responses. Pollsters will tell you mail-in surveys usually only attract negative votes and a majority of respondents are usually older folks.

What makes the IBD poll more suspect is the survey question: “Do you believe the government can cover 47 million more people and it will cost less and the quality of care will be better?”

That confusing query is actually three questions in one.

And it should also be remembered that during the 2008 general election, an IBD poll showed John McCain would win 74 percent of the youth vote.

Hmmm.

• My libertarian side burrs up when both the Dems and Repubs propose “mandatory” health care insurance and a “penalty” for those who aren’t insured. At the same time, I understand where they’re coming from: The uninsured will still go to emergency rooms when they’re sick or injured, and you and I end up paying for that.

• When word slipped out that Manny Ramirez and former Red Sox teammate David Ortiz had tested for performance enhancers, Ramirez’s initial reaction was, uh, quizzical. “Me and David, we’re like two mountains,” Manny said. “We’re going to keep playing the game, and we’re going to keep doing good. We’re trying to move forward.” Manny, how do you couple the analogy “we’re like two mountains” with the declaration “We’re trying to move forward?”

• Oh, one other finding in the RWJ Foundation poll was that 55 percent of doctors surveyed, regardless of their medical specialty, favor expanding the Medicare start-up age to 55, instead of 65.

• According to the FDA, a single chocolate chip provides enough food energy for an adult to walk 150 feet. So, it would take about 55 of them to walk a mile. Of course, you’d have to walk another half-mile to burn off the calories consumed.

• Doesn’t it make you nervous when so many people believe they have the answer to everything?

• Florida State football coach Bobby Bowden will be 80 on Nov. 8. What keeps driving him to walk the sidelines? “After you retire,” Bowden notes, “there’s only one big event left — and I ain’t ready for that.”

• A year after the Wall Street collapse, here’s a key lesson: American capitalism’s biggest threat isn’t socialism, it’s continuing to police the market place half-heartedly or not at all.

• If you’re like me and can’t pass up an ol’ time diner, here’s an order that’s a lip-smacker: Adam and Eve on a raft, blowout patches with cow paste and motor oil, and a drawer. You just ordered two poached eggs on toast, pancakes with butter and syrup, and a cup o’ Joe ... er, coffee.

• “The sound of a kiss is not so loud as that of a cannon, but its echo lasts a great deal longer.” Oliver Wendell Holmes, the late Chief Justice and romantic, said it.

• Oklahoma’s Woody Guthrie was a prolific writer, who wouldn’t put down his pen until Hodgkin’s Disease made writing physically impossible. Last year, a Guthrie family member discovered a poem called “Love” that Woody wrote somewhere down the line. It’s a majestic piece that should be shared with all humanity.

n Make brownies. Oops, sorry, that sticky note wasn’t supposed to make it into this column!



— Jeff Kaley is editor of the Waurika News-Democrat and a Duncan Banner columnist. He can be reached at 580-228-2316 or e-mailed at jeff.kaley@duncanbanner.com.