Survey: The more practicing physicians learn about Obamacare, the more they dislike it and want to start over

Great post from Mark Perry

Some pretty devastatingly negative results about Obamacare from a November 8-12 survey of 3,072 practicing physicians in all 50 states, and reported this week by the Atlanta Business Chronicle:

1. Most physicians didn’t like Obamacare when Congress passed the health-care reform law in 2010. Fifty-nine percent of practicing physicians surveyed said they opposed the Affordable Care Act at the time Congress was debating and adopting the legislation, while only 26% supported the measure.

2. Amid the current wave of negative publicity surrounding the rocky rollout of the program, 61% of the physicians said they have a worse opinion of Obamacare now than they did back in 2010, while just 31% have not changed their opinion and only 8% said they have a better opinion of the law.

3. 80% of physicians said they believe patients will pay more for health care under the new law, while 76% said overall health-care costs would increase.

4. 60% of the survey respondents said Obamacare would hurt the quality of patient care, while 57% said the law would negatively impact their treatment of patients.

5. A sizable minority of the physicians surveyed ­– 44% – said they would not participate in the health insurance exchanges the new law has created.

Bottom Line: “The more physicians learn about the ACA, the more they dislike it and want to start over,” said Richard Jackson, chairman and CEO of Alpharetta, Ga.-based Jackson Healthcare LLC, the nation’s third-largest health-care staffing company. “Physicians are the most knowledgeable people about what’s going on in health care,” said Sandra Garrett, president of Jackson & Coker, a physician staffing company. “We wanted to give them a voice about something that affects all of us.”

MP: When almost half (44%) of the practicing physicians surveyed nationwide say they won’t participate in the new health insurance exchanges, I would say that the Unaffordable Care Act is in very, very serious trouble.