Support for national health insurance among U.S. physicians: a national survey.

BACKGROUND: Nearly 40 million persons in the United States were without health insurance for all of 2000. National health insurance would remedy this situation, and many believe the success of reform efforts in this direction may depend on physician support. OBJECTIVE: To determine the general attitudes of U.S. physicians toward the financing of national health care. DESIGN: Cross-sectional study. SETTING: National mailed survey. PARTICIPANTS: 3188 randomly sampled physicians from the American Medical Association Physician Masterfile. MEASUREMENTS: Physicians were asked whether they support or oppose 1) governmental legislation to establish national health insurance and 2) a national health insurance plan in which all health care is paid for by the federal government. Weighted multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed to identify factors that independently predicted support for each of these strategies. RESULTS: Sixty percent of eligible participants returned a survey. Forty-nine percent of physicians supported governmental legislation to establish national health insurance, and 40% opposed it. Only 26% of all physicians supported a national health insurance plan in which all health care is paid for by the federal government. In analyses adjusting for differences in personal and practice characteristics, physicians in a primary care specialty, physicians reporting that at least 20% of their patients had Medicaid, and physicians practicing in a nonprivate setting or in an inner-city location were statistically significantly more likely to support governmental legislation to establish national health insurance. CONCLUSIONS: A plurality of U.S. physicians supports governmental legislation to establish national health insurance. This support may be relevant to the success of future efforts to reform national health care.