Friday, September 18, 2009
Poll Says Doctors Would Leave In Droves
There's a new poll out that should scare the begeebers out of you. The IBD/TIPP poll says 45 percent or more doctors would consider quitting if Congress passes health care overhaul. Two of every three practicing physicians oppose the medical overhaul plan under consideration in Washington, in the Investor's Business Daily. This poll has clout with me because Michael Ramirez works there. Anyway, the poll contradicts the claims of not only the White House, but also the doctors' own lobby -- the powerful American Medical Association -- both of which suggest the medical profession is behind the proposed overhaul. According to Investor's Business, there are questions whether an overhaul is even possible. Seventy-two percent of the doctors polled disagree with the Obama administration's claim that the government can cover 47 million more people with better-quality care at lower costs. The poll was taken over the last two weeks with 1,376 practicing physicians chosen randomly throughout the country taking part.
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1. The survey was conducted by mail, which is unusual. The only other mail-based poll that I'm aware of is that conducted by the Columbus Dispatch, which was associated with an average error of about 7 percentage points -- the highest of any pollster that we tested.
ReplyDelete2. At least one of the questions is blatantly biased: "Do you believe the government can cover 47 million more people and it will cost less money and th quality of care will be better?". Holy run-on-sentence, Batman? A pollster who asks a question like this one is not intending to be objective.
3. As we learned during the Presidntial campaign -- when, among other things, they had John McCain winning the youth vote 74-22 -- the IBD/TIPP polling operation has literally no idea what they're doing. I mean, literally none. For example, I don't trust IBD/TIPP to have competently selected anything resembling a random panel, which is harder to do than you'd think.
4. They say, somewhat ambiguously: "Responses are still coming in." This is also highly unorthodox. Professional pollsters generally do not report results before the survey period is compete.
5. There is virtually no disclosure about methodology. For example, IBD doesn't bother to define the term "practicing physician", which could mean almost anything. Nor do they explain how their randomization procedure worked, provide the entire question battery, or anything like that.
6. Believe what you want about the health care debate, but you're an exceptionally terrible "journalist" if you place legitimacy in this, Fleming.
Ok Sharon, now for your educated, well-reasoned comments:
You and Mr. Fleming may debate this til the cow jumps over the moon as I have no interest in polls, none, zilch. About as interesting as watching football or basketball, which I ignore with the same degree of bordom. zzzz...zzzz
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