NEJM Poll Suggests Nearly Half of Physicians Will Quit if Public Option is Passed

The Achilles heel of any socialist system is the demoralization of the workers and the subsequent loss of productivity that comes with it.  From Hot Air:

And you thought wait times were long now. The New England Journal of Medicine, hardly a bastion of conservative thought, polled health-care providers to determine their reaction to ObamaCare, and discovered that it has many doctors looking for the exits. Almost half of all general-practice doctors would feel compelled to leave medicine altogether if it passes:

* 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.

* 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.

* 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.

Oddly, NEMJ polled heavily on the public option, which has been out of the ObamaCare proposal since mid-December when the Senate finally killed it. The public option is deeply unpopular among physicians, with only 29% in favor of it. Forty-five percent would either retire or quit if it passed, and 71% believe their income would fall with a public option — probably from experience with Medicare and Medicaid.

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