You Doctors!

Because -- imagine it if you can! -- it's even more brazenly false than Fox "news," I never look at The Drudge Report. So I wasn't aware that 83% of doctors hate Obamacare so much they might quit. Admittedly, other than assisting in operations, I'm no longer in practice; but I still hang around with a few docs and have never heard such an opinion expressed.* Turns out there's a reason: the headlined study was total bullshit.

Eighty-three percent of American physicians have considered leaving their practices over President Barack Obama’s health care reform law, according to a survey released by the Doctor Patient Medical Association.

Intriguing. What's the Doctor Patient Medical Association? [The author] refers to it as "a non-partisan association of doctors and patients." But lots of organizations claim to be "non-partisan." The DPMA's co-founder, quoted here, is Kathryn Serkes. She's "non-partisan" in the sense that she worked for a conservative Republican in the 2010 Washington state race for U.S. Senate, and appeared alongside Republican members of Congress at Tea Party rallies against the Affordable Care Act. Her partner at the top is Mark Schiller, M.D., who's also a fellow at the Pacific Research Institute, and the author of a classic 2009 column about how "Obamacare" would succeed by helping to kill sick people.

[...]

So, they have some opinions. But how did they get these survey results?

The survey was conducted by fax and online from April 18 to May 22, 2012. DPMAF obtained the office fax numbers of 36,000 doctors in active clinical practice, and 16, 227 faxes were successfully delivered... The response rate was 4.3% for a total of 699 completed surveys.

Impressive. Not only did the Drudge article falsely assert the study was by a "nonpartisan" group and misstate the data (it claimed 699 were surveyed), it ignored the fact that its pathetic return numbers invalidate the claim. (Had I received such a survey by fax, from an unknown organization, I'd have shit-canned it, too.) But never mind. Any peripheral lie is okay if it reinforces the central one.

Lies upon lies: for today's Republicans, it's the new truth.

Oh man, oh man, oh man, are we ever screwed...
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* In fact, here's a letter to the editor that appeared in The Seattle Times just a day after I wrote the above. I agree with him. You'd think most reasonable people, even R politicians, would too. Come together to make it better. (Who am I kidding?)