You've got a solipsistic link there, Ezra.

and speaking of health care blogging...

full article at:

http://www.pnhp.org/docsurvey/annals_physician_support.pdf

Press Release:

http://www.pnhp.org/news/2008/march/most_doctors_support.php

Most doctors support national health insurance, new study shows
Reflecting a shift in thinking over the past five years among U.S. physicians, a new study shows a solid majority of doctors - 59 percent - now supports national health insurance.

Such plans typically involve a single, federally administered social insurance fund that that guarantees health care coverage for everyone, much like Medicare currently does for seniors. The plans typically eliminate or substantially reduce the role of private insurance companies in the health care financing system, but still allow patients to go the doctors of their choice.

A study published in today's Annals of Internal Medicine, a leading medical journal, reports that a survey conducted last year of 2,193 physicians across the United States showed 59 percent of them "support government legislation to establish national health insurance," while 32 percent oppose it and 9 percent are neutral.

The findings reflect a leap of 10 percentage points in physician support for national health insurance (NHI) since 2002, when a similar survey was conducted. At that time, 49 percent of all physician respondents said they supported NHI and 40 percent opposed it.

Support among doctors for NHI has increased across almost all medical specialties, said Dr. Ronald T. Ackermann, associate director of the Center for Health Policy and Professionalism Research at Indiana University's School of Medicine and co-author of the study.

"Across the board, more physicians feel that our fragmented and for-profit insurance system is obstructing good patient care, and a majority now support national insurance as the remedy," he said.

Support for NHI is particularly strong among psychiatrists (83 percent), pediatric sub-specialists (71 percent), emergency medicine physicians (69 percent), general pediatricians (65 percent), general internists (64 percent) and family physicians (60 percent). Fifty-five percent of general surgeons support NHI, roughly doubling their level of support since 2002.

Doctors have often expressed concern about lack of patient access to care due to rising costs and patients' insufficient levels of insurance. An estimated 47 million Americans currently lack health insurance coverage and another 50 million are believed to be underinsured. At the same time, health care costs in the United States are rising at the rate of about 7 percent a year, twice the rate of inflation.

The health care issue continues to rank high among voter concerns in the 2008 elections, placing third in a recent poll after the economy and Iraq.

The current study by the Indiana University researchers is the largest survey ever conducted among doctors on the issue of health care financing reform. It is based on a random sampling of names obtained from the American Medical Association's master list of physicians throughout the country.

In addition to measuring attitudes toward NHI, the survey also asked doctors about their views about "more incremental reform," often interpreted as state- or federal-based programs requiring or "mandating" that consumers buy health insurance from private insurance companies, legislative measures providing tax incentives to businesses to provide coverage for their employees, or similar steps.

Fewer physicians (55%) were in support of "incremental" reform. Moreover, virtually all those opposed to national health insurance also opposed incremental reform to improve access to care. In fact, only 14% of physicians overall oppose national health insurance but support more incremental reforms. Ironically, many medical organizations and most politicians have endorsed only incremental changes.

Dr. Aaron E. Carroll, Director of Indiana University's Center for Health Policy and Professionalism Research and lead author of the study, commented: "Many claim to speak for physicians and reflect their views. We asked doctors directly and found that, contrary to conventional wisdom, most doctors support the government creating national health insurance."

Other signs indicate that attitudes among doctors are changing. The nation's largest medical specialty group, the 124,000-member American College of Physicians, endorsed a single-payer national health insurance program for the first time in December.

Conclusion:

In 2007, almost 60 percent of physicians supported government legislation to establish National Health Insurance - a 10 percent increase in support since 2002. This increase represents over 80,000 physicians, distributed across every medical specialty, who have changed their minds in support of National Health Insurance over the past five years. The largest increase was seen among physicians who "strongly support" National Health Insurance; now almost twice as many physicians support it as oppose it. This study, involving over 2000 physicians nationwide, is the largest study done to date of physician views on health care financing reform. Today, a significant majority of physicians support government legislation to establish National Health Insurance.

Don McCanne's Comment: The debate over physician support of national health insurance is over. A majority of physicians are clearly in support, and that support continues to grow.

I'm seeing lots of things about money and health care, but nothing about the combination of the two greatest things ever created: Video Games and Cake.

I don't think the problem is basing pay on views or clicks or links; in some ways, that seems a sensible approach. I think the bigger problem is twofold - one, Gawker's problems reflect a general dilemma about making web based content a profitable enterprise, and two, as with commission sales work, pay per views values certain things, some of which can be counterintuitive to business success (it rewards the mercenary, the extreme, the selfish... over teamwork, collaboration, and risk taking). Which is to say, as part of the creative underclass, I sympathize too... but I think the problem is Nick Denton, not the idea of how Gawker Media might work in theory on a pay per views and links model.

I see what you're trying to do there, Fnor. I'm not going to do the memetic follow-up.

Anyhow, I do see some merit to rewarding people for bringing readers - without them, your media enterprise is going to fail. So you do need to encourage writers to shoot for that.

The flip side is that some people get too absorbed in attracting readers and don't actually put up substance for those readers to take. There are perils either way you go.

I always used the term "poorgeoisie" for the same dynamic - relatively educated people with professional parents who found themselves, post-college, opting for jobs that afforded them a strikingly low standard of living.

Um, revolt? "Gawker Media writer dislikes Gawker Media as employer" isn't news. "Gawker Media writer writes Gawker Media post about disliking Gawker Media as employer" isn't even news. Denton can afford to burn through his writers, there's always more.

i can't really find pity for gawker writers. its definitely obvious to me that they've altered their content recently to garner more page views. i wish my bosses paid me for every line drawn in autocad....

Myself, I prefer the term "lumpen intelligentsia."

But then I'm old school that way.

Actually, the term pre-dated that post, going back at least as far as Vanessa Grigoriadis' takedown of the vile swamp of envy and ugliness that is gawker:

http://nymag.com/news/features/39319/

I liked this story better when it was called "Boogie Nights."