Obama's New HC Plan

[Rawedge Rim]

If you're making 60K a year, you shouldn't be needing help. But I'm not talkng about the specifics of any case, I'm just talking about the principle behind it.

And of course, I operate on the principle that it's not you doing the helping, it's the government. You're not obligated to do anything except pay taxes. It's with what the government does with that money afterwards where the question arises.

--A

Problem is not so much if you are making 60k a year, it's how much you get of that as take home, and what your cost of living is. Where I'm at, if I was making 60k, I'd be doing fairly well; in NYC , or Boston, LA, etc., OTOH, I'd be hurting to make ends meet.

[Avatar]

Ok, I'll grant that as something that should be taken into consideration. And of course things like people living beyond their means should be taken into account as well.

--A

[SoulBiter]

www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,589377,00.html?test=faces

Simpson claims she is normal and healthy, and she has a right to eat what she wants and weigh what she wants.

“I love eating and people love watching me eat,” she says. “It makes people happy, and I’m not harming anyone.”

But she needs to use a motor scooter when she goes grocery shopping, because she can't walk more than 20 feet. The human body, after all, is not designed to scarf down 12,000 calories a day in the quest to weigh half a ton.

So what about people like this? Does the govt force them to stop eating under national healthcare?

[Avatar]

No. But it could maybe say that if she doesn't make an effort to lose weight, she'll have to pay for her own.

--A

[Rawedge Rim]

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/a ... e][b]House may try to pass Senate health-care bill without voting on it[/b]

By Lori Montgomery and Paul Kane
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, March 16, 2010; A01



After laying the groundwork for a decisive vote this week on the Senate's health-care bill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested Monday that she might attempt to pass the measure without having members vote on it.

Instead, Pelosi (D-Calif.) would rely on a procedural sleight of hand: The House would vote on a more popular package of fixes to the Senate bill; under the House rule for that vote, passage would signify that lawmakers "deem" the health-care bill to be passed.

The tactic -- known as a "self-executing rule" or a "deem and pass" -- has been commonly used, although never to pass legislation as momentous as the $875 billion health-care bill. It is one of three options that Pelosi said she is considering for a late-week House vote, but she added that she prefers it because it would politically protect lawmakers who are reluctant to publicly support the measure.

"It's more insider and process-oriented than most people want to know," the speaker said in a roundtable discussion with bloggers Monday. "But I like it," she said, "because people don't have to vote on the Senate bill."

Republicans quickly condemned the strategy, framing it as an effort to avoid responsibility for passing the legislation, and some suggested that Pelosi's plan would be unconstitutional.

"It's very painful and troubling to see the gymnastics through which they are going to avoid accountability," Rep. David Dreier (Calif.), the senior Republican on the House Rules Committee, told reporters. "And I hope very much that, at the end of the day, that if we are going to have a vote, we will have a clean up-or-down vote that will allow the American people to see who is supporting this Senate bill and who is not supporting this Senate bill."

House leaders have worked for days to round up support for the legislation, but the Senate measure has drawn fierce opposition from a broad spectrum of members. Antiabortion Democrats say it would permit federal funding for abortion, liberals oppose its tax on high-cost insurance plans, and Republicans say the measure overreaches and is too expensive.

Some senior lawmakers have acknowledged in recent days that Democrats lack the votes for passage. Pelosi, however, predicted Monday that she would deliver.

"When we have a bill, then we will let you know about the votes. But when we bring the bill to the floor, we will have the votes," she told reporters.

Pelosi said Monday that House Democrats have yet to decide how to approach the vote. But she added that any strategy involving a separate vote on the Senate bill "isn't too popular," and aides said the leadership is likely to bow to the wishes of its rank and file.

As Pelosi and other congressional leaders pressed wavering lawmakers, President Obama highlighted how close the result may be as he focused his attention Monday on Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), who has been a stalwart no vote on health-care reform.

Kucinich, an uncompromising liberal, has rejected any measure without a government-run insurance plan. Obama invited Kucinich to join him aboard Air Force One for a trip to suburban Cleveland, where the president made a plea for reform, the third such pitch in eight days.

As he addressed a crowd of more than 1,400, Obama repeatedly called on lawmakers to summon the "courage to pass the far-reaching package." He painted the existing insurance system as a nightmare for millions of American who cannot afford quality coverage.

The president lashed out at Republican critics who have argued that the health-care initiative would undermine Medicare, and he argued that the measure would end "the worst practices" of insurance companies.

"I don't know about the politics, but I know what's the right thing to do," he said, nearly shouting as the crowd cheered. "And so I'm calling on Congress to pass these reforms -- and I'm going to sign them into law. I want some courage. I want us to do the right thing."

Asked whether he was reconsidering his position, Kucinich demurred. But Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said Kucinich is coming under intense pressure from Ohioans who want Congress to act, and from his colleagues in Washington.

"All of us -- the governor, the congressional delegation, the president -- are making clear to Dennis that we won't have another chance for a decade if this doesn't happen," Brown said.

Persuading liberals such as Kucinich to support the Senate bill is critical to the Democratic strategy, which has been rewritten since January, when Democrats lost their supermajority in the Senate. The Senate Democratic caucus, reduced to 59 seats, lost its ability to override Republican filibusters and soon abandoned plans to pass a revised version of the health-care bill that would reflect a compromise with House leaders.

As House leaders looked for a path that could get the Senate legislation through the chamber and onto Obama's desk, conservatives warned that Pelosi's use of deem-and-pass in this way would run afoul of the Constitution. They pointed to a 1998 Supreme Court ruling that said each house of Congress must approve the exact same text of a bill before it can become law. A self-executing rule sidesteps that requirement, former federal appellate judge Michael McConnell argued in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.

Democrats were also struggling Monday to put the finishing touches on the package of fixes. Under reconciliation rules, it is protected from filibusters and could pass the Senate with only 50 votes, but can include only provisions that would affect the budget.

Democratic leaders learned over the weekend that they may not be able to include a number of favored items, including some Republican proposals to stem fraud in federal health-care programs and a plan to weaken a new board that would be empowered to cut Medicare payments.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Md.), the Democratic leader tasked with protecting politically vulnerable incumbents, said Republicans would twist the nature of the health-care vote, no matter how the leadership proceeds. He defended the deem-and-pass strategy as a way "to make it clear we're amending the Senate bill."

Without that approach, Van Hollen warned, "people are going to try to create the impression that the Senate bill is the final product, and it's not."

Undecided Democrats appeared unconcerned by the flap. Rep. Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.), a retiring lawmaker who opposed the original House bill and is undecided on the new package, mocked Republican criticism of the process. Ultimately, he said, voters will hold lawmakers responsible for any changes in law.

"I don't think anybody's going to say that we didn't vote for the bill," he said.

Staff writer Peter Slevin in Ohio contributed to this report.
[/quote]

Oh come on, if it's a good bill, then vote on the damn thing as it is, otherwise, let's not sneak it in through the back door.

[Ki]

Pelosi told the bloggers she favors using the "self-executing rule" strategy in which the House would pass the Senate health care bill without going on the record as specifically voting for it. "I like it," Pelosi said of the scheme, "because people don't have to vote on the Senate bill." The strategy of passing the Senate bill while avoiding a direct vote, writes Klein, "is all about plausible deniability for House members who don't want to vote for the Senate bill."

www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blog ... 41467.html

Wow....plausible deniability. Just what I like to hear from our leaders. Especially those who like to hold private corporations, like those bad health insurance companies, accountable.

[Zarathustra]

From the New England Journal of Medicine: 46% of primary care physicians would leave the profession if Obamacare passes.

Physician Survey: Health Reform May Lead to Significant Reduction in Physician Workforce

Mar. – Apr. 2010

What if nearly half of all physicians in America stopped practicing medicine? While a sudden loss of half of the nations physicians seems unlikely, a very dramatic decrease in the physician workforce could become a reality as an unexpected side effect of health reform.

The Medicus Firm, a national physician search firm based in Dallas and Atlanta, conducted a survey of over 1,000 physicians to determine their expectations as to the impact of health reform on their practices, income, job satisfaction, and future career plans. In discussing career plans as part of the recruitment process, physicians have increasingly expressed apprehension and uncertainty regarding health reform’s impact on their practices, and The Medicus Firm wished to investigate this trend further. Additionally, the firm wanted to determine how doctors anticipate health reform to affect physician supply and the quality of medical care nationwide, as these are issues that will directly influence the physician recruiting industry. These factors are in addition to health reform’s more obvious impact on patients and providers of health care services. A total of 1,195 physicians from various specialties and career levels in locations nationally completed the survey.1

The results from the survey, entitled “Physician Survey: Health Reform’s Impact on Physician Supply and Quality of Medical Care,” were intriguing, particularly in light of the most recently published career projections from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The BLS predicts a more than a 22 percent increase in physician jobs during the ten-year period ending in 2018. This places physician careers in the top 20 fastest-growing occupations from 2008 to 2018. Meanwhile, nearly one-third of physicians responding to the survey indicated that they will want to leave medical practice after health reform is implemented.

“What many people may not realize is that health reform could impact physician supply in such a way that the quality of health care could suffer,” said Steve Marsh, managing partner at The Medicus Firm in Dallas. “The reality is that there may not be enough doctors to provide quality medical care to the millions of newly insured patients.”

It’s probably not likely that nearly half of the nation’s physicians will suddenly quit practicing at once. However, even if a much smaller percentage such as ten, 15, or 20 percent are pushed out of practice over several years at a time when the field needs to expand by over 20 percent, this would be severely detrimental to the quality of the health care system. Based on the survey results, health reform could, over time, prove to be counterproductive, in that it could decrease patients’ access to medical care while the objective is to improve access.

Furthermore, even if physicians are unable to act upon a desire to quit medicine, there could be an impact in quality of care due to a lack of morale in physicians who do continue to treat patients despite feeling significantly stressed.

Skeptics may suspect that physicians exaggerate their intent to leave medicine due to health reform. Some experts point to the malpractice crisis of years ago, when many doctors also expressed a desire to leave medicine. Some did quit; many did not. However, health reform could be the proverbial “last straw” for physicians who are already demoralized, overloaded, and discouraged by multiple issues, combining to form the perfect storm of high malpractice insurance costs, decreasing reimbursements, increasing student loan debt, and more.

Do physicians feel that health reform is necessary? The survey indicates that doctors do want change. Only a very small portion of respondents — about four percent — feel that no reform is needed. However, only 28.7 percent of physicians responded in favor of a public option as part of health reform. Additionally, an overwhelming 63 percent of physicians prefer a more gradual, targeted approach to health reform, as opposed to one sweeping overhaul. Primary care, which is already experiencing significant shortages by many accounts, could stand to be the most affected, based on the survey. About 25 percent of respondents were primary care physicians (defined as internal medicine and family medicine in this case), and of those, 46 percent indicated that they would leave medicine — or try to leave medicine — as a result of health reform.


Why would physicians want to leave medicine in the wake of health reform? The survey results, as seen in Market Watch, indicate that many physicians worry that reform could result in a significant decline in the overall quality of medical care nationwide.

Additionally, many physicians feel that health reform will cause income to decrease, while workload will increase. Forty-one percent of respondents feel that income and practice revenue will “decline or worsen dramatically” as a result of health reform with a public option, and 31 percent feel that a public option will cause income and practice revenue to “decline or worsen somewhat” as a result. This makes for a total of 72 percent of respondents who feel there would be a negative impact on income. When asked the same question regarding health reform implemented without a public option, a total of 50 percent of respondents feel that income and practice revenue will be negatively impacted, including 14 percent of total respondents who feel that income and practice revenue will “decline or worsen dramatically.” Additionally, 36 percent feel it would “decline or worsen somewhat.”

What do physicians propose for effective health reform? In the survey, physicians were prompted to provide ideas, and some common themes emerged among the hundreds of comments. Tort reform appeared repeatedly, as did patient responsibility and ownership in their health care and costs. Additionally, many physicians emphasized a need for addressing specific issues with separate legislation, as opposed to one sweeping, comprehensive bill.

What does this mean for physician recruiting? It’s difficult to predict with absolute certainty, but one consequence is inevitable. After health reform is passed and implemented, physicians will be more in demand than ever before. Shortages could be exacerbated further beyond the predictions of industry analysts. Therefore, the strongest physician recruiters and firms will be in demand. Additionally, hospitals and practices may be forced to rely on unprecedented recruitment methods to attract and retain physicians. “Health reform, even if it’s passed in a most diluted form, could be a game-changer for physician recruitment,” said Bob Collins, managing partner of The Medicus Firm in Texas. “As competitive as the market is now, we may not even be able to comprehend how challenging it will become after health reform takes effect.”

The survey sample was randomly selected from a physician database of thousands. The database has been built over the past eight years by The Medicus Firm (formerly Medicus Partners and The MD Firm) from a variety of sources including, but not limited to, public directories, purchased lists, practice inquiries, training programs, and direct mail responses. The survey was conducted via emails sent directly to physicians.

link

Doctors' recommended solution to health care: ". . . patient responsibility and ownership in their health care and costs." In other words, consumer driven health care! Yes, a majority of doctors agree with me!

But seriously, this is a catastrophe in the making.

[Avatar]

I doubt that many would actually leave, but it certainly seems that a lot of physicians are opposed to it.

I'd have to ask however how much their reasons depend on self-interest.

Otherwise, I'm all for tort reform and personal responsibility.

--A

[Zarathustra]

I'd have to ask however how much their reasons depend on self-interest.

From the article:

Why would physicians want to leave medicine in the wake of health reform? The survey results, as seen in Market Watch, indicate that many physicians worry that reform could result in a significant decline in the overall quality of medical care nationwide.

Additionally, many physicians feel that health reform will cause income to decrease, while workload will increase. Forty-one percent of respondents feel that income and practice revenue will “decline or worsen dramatically” as a result of health reform with a public option, and 31 percent feel that a public option will cause income and practice revenue to “decline or worsen somewhat” as a result. This makes for a total of 72 percent of respondents who feel there would be a negative impact on income. When asked the same question regarding health reform implemented without a public option, a total of 50 percent of respondents feel that income and practice revenue will be negatively impacted, including 14 percent of total respondents who feel that income and practice revenue will “decline or worsen dramatically.” Additionally, 36 percent feel it would “decline or worsen somewhat.”

Sure, self-interest is part of it. And who could blame them? Doctor's basically give up their 20s. They go to school for years, start out making next to nothing, incur 100s of 1000s in school loan debt, and now they're looking at a government takeover of their industry which will force them to work much harder for less money. I'd quit, too, especially if was one of the older, established, wealthy doctors who didn't have to worry about money--or a student deciding to go into medicine. In other words, expect to see more of our most experienced doctors leave, and fewer young people choose this profession in order to replace them.

Anyone who thinks this will improve health care in the U.S. is dreaming.

BTW, your expectation that they won't really quit was addressed in the article, too.

Skeptics may suspect that physicians exaggerate their intent to leave medicine due to health reform. Some experts point to the malpractice crisis of years ago, when many doctors also expressed a desire to leave medicine. Some did quit; many did not. However, health reform could be the proverbial “last straw” for physicians who are already demoralized, overloaded, and discouraged by multiple issues, combining to form the perfect storm of high malpractice insurance costs, decreasing reimbursements, increasing student loan debt, and more.

And for others who might be reading . . . the New England Journal of Medicine isn't Fox News. It's one of the most prestigious, highly regarded medical journals in the world.

[Avatar]

Good answers.

--A

[Cagliostro]

Right, but a lot of fed up lefties said they'd leave the country if Bush was re-elected in 2004, and yet most of them are still here.

But yeah, the ones with money might just carry though. The rest will probably think about how much time they put in and look at the job market as is and think a different career is probably not worth it.

[Avatar]

Only one way to find out...

--A

[Harbinger]

• Page 16: States that if you have insurance at the time of the bill becoming law and change, you will be required to take a similar plan. If that is not available, you will be required to take the government option!
• Page 22: Mandates audits of all employers that self-insure!
• Page 29: Admission: your health care will be rationed!
• Page 30: A government committee will decide what treatments and benefits you get (and, unlike an insurer, there will be no appeals process)
• Page 42: The "Health Choices Commissioner" will decide health benefits for you. You will have no choice. None.
• Page 50: All non-US citizens, illegal or not, will be provided with free healthcare services.
• Page 58: Every person will be issued a National ID Healthcard.
• Page 59: The federal government will have direct, real-time access to all individual bank accounts for electronic funds transfer.
• Page 65: Taxpayers will subsidize all union retiree and community organizer health plans (example: SEIU, UAW and ACORN)
• Page 72: All private healthcare plans must conform to government rules to participate in a Healthcare Exchange.
• Page 84: All private healthcare plans must participate in the Healthcare Exchange (i.e., total government control of private plans)
• Page 91: Government mandates linguistic infrastructure for services; translation: illegal aliens
• Page 95: The Government will pay ACORN and Americorps to sign up individuals for Government-run Health Care plan.
• Page 102: Those eligible for Medicaid will be automatically enrolled: you have no choice in the matter.
• Page 124: No company can sue the government for price-fixing. No "judicial review" is permitted against the government monopoly. Put simply, private insurers will be crushed.
• Page 127: The AMA sold doctors out: the government will set wages.
• Page 145: An employer MUST auto-enroll employees into the government-run public plan. No alternatives.

[Ki]

This is what is happening in Washington state:

Walgreens: no new Medicaid patients as of April 16

Effective April 16, Walgreens drugstores across the state won't take any new Medicaid patients, saying that filling their prescriptions is a money-losing proposition — the latest development in an ongoing dispute over Medicaid reimbursement.

seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnew ... ns18m.html

[Lord Mhoram]

And for others who might be reading . . . the New England Journal of Medicine isn't Fox News. It's one of the most prestigious, highly regarded medical journals in the world.

Indeed. Which is why it has disassociated itself from what is described below, accurately I think, as "essentially a promotional document," not a scientific survey conducted by a scholarly journal:

Media Matters for America contacted the New England Journal of Medicine, which confirmed it neither conducted nor published the "survey."

NEJM spokesperson Jennifer Zeis told Media Matters that the study had "nothing to do with the New England Journal of Medicine's original research." She also made clear that the study "was not published by the New England Journal of Medicine," and said that "we are taking steps to clarify the source of the survey."

The "report" that right-wing media are citing actually appeared in Recruiting Physicians Today, which is an employment newsletter produced by "the publishers of the New England Journal of Medicine." According to Zeis, that report actually "was written by the Medicus Firm," the medical recruitment firm that conducted the "survey."

Here's how The Medicus Firm describes the "survey" methodology:

"The survey sample was randomly selected from a physician database of thousands. The database has been built over the past eight years by The Medicus Firm (formerly Medicus Partners and The MD Firm) from a variety of sources including, but not limited to, public directories, purchased lists, practice inquiries, training programs, and direct mail responses. The survey was conducted via emails sent directly to physicians."

The Medicus Firm's clients include hospitals and physician groups.

UPDATE:

Following inquiries from Media Matters, the "NEJM CareerCenter" website has now posted the following statement, making clear that Recruiting Physicians Today is a "free advertiser newsletter" whose content is "produced by physician recruiting firms and other independent groups involved in physician employment" and that Medicus was responsible for conducting and publishing the "survey" in question. (NEJM tells Media Matters that The Medicus Firm "did not pay" to run the report.)

...

So, in sum, the right-wing media has seized upon what appears to be essentially a promotional document from a physician recruitment firm in order to argue that health care reform will cause physician recruitment and retention problems in the future.

You'll notice Malik's link is not to the Journal's actual content (which is here and includes a column in favor of the President's healthcare reform), but to its supplementary "career" postings. A very clever attempt at legitimization.

[Avatar]

Nice to see you around LM. And thanks for going to the trouble of clarifying.

I'm sure you didn't mean to imply that the attempt at legitimisation was Malik's though, rather than that of those using the promotional document as justification for their criticism.

--A

[Cybrweez]

Yes, very good research LM, welcome back.

[Zarathustra]

Media Matters for America contacted the New England Journal of Medicine, which confirmed it neither conducted nor published the "survey."

NEJM spokesperson Jennifer Zeis told Media Matters that the study had "nothing to do with the New England Journal of Medicine's original research." She also made clear that the study "was not published by the New England Journal of Medicine," and said that "we are taking steps to clarify the source of the survey."

The NEJM publishes other people's studies all the time. This is primarily what they do. The fact that the survey was conducted by someone else is a nonissue.

You'll notice Malik's link is not to the Journal's actual content (which is here and includes a column in favor of the President's healthcare reform), but to its supplementary "career" postings. A very clever attempt at legitimization.

It's Zarathustra, now, btw. I'm sure you noticed.

This wasn't an attempt at legitimization. I did a Google search for the story, found a NEJM website that had the article, and posted it. Nothing nefarious like you're suggesting. When I posted the link, it actually had the full article I quoted above at the NEJM website. Even your own information which you've posted here admits that it was changed:

UPDATE:

Following inquiries from Media Matters, the "NEJM CareerCenter" website has now posted the following statement, making clear that Recruiting Physicians Today is a "free advertiser newsletter" whose content is "produced by physician recruiting firms and other independent groups involved in physician employment" and that Medicus was responsible for conducting and publishing the "survey" in question. (NEJM tells Media Matters that The Medicus Firm "did not pay" to run the report.)

If this is an advertising newsletter, what are they adverstising, exactly? A survey is a survey. Do you dispute the findings?

[Lord Mhoram]

Zarathustra,

The NEJM publishes other people's studies all the time. This is primarily what they do. The fact that the survey was conducted by someone else is a nonissue.

But the Journal unequivocally did not publish this survey. Period. This is what they themsleves have said. Furthermore, a journal like the NEJM does indeed post surveys -- as peer-reviewed articles published in numbered issues of the journal written by professionals, like this one for instance. Notice how this one discloses its methodology in clear and mathematical terms. While the one you posted, again not from the NEJM itself, was "randomly selected" from an ad-hoc database of doctors who subscribe to a newsletter.

I did a Google search for the story, found a NEJM website that had the article, and posted it.

Like I said, a quick look at the URL would have told you that this was no New England Journal of Medicine survey, but one posted (decidedly not published) by a supplementary publication.

If this is an advertising newsletter, what are they adverstising, exactly?

First of all it's no matter of "if." We know who published the survey, and they are an advertising newsletter. Second, it's purportedly a survey of interest to its demographic, and newsletters include things of interest to those who read it. But you were the one who went out of your way to trumpet the "prestige" of your source when your source wasn't what you said it was. Do I "dispute the findings"? I dispute (a) the legitimacy of the source in direct contrast to your characterization of it and (b) the survey's methodology, which is neither clear nor disclosed and possibly illegitimate.

So I don't think it's a matter of nefariousness, this is in response to Avatar too, but an instance of jumping upon a survey that was supposed to have been published in what you rightly call one of if not the best medical journal in the United States, which you probably heard about in one of the sources cited by Media Matters, because it affirmed your own suspicions, when in fact it was published elsewhere.

[Zarathustra]

But the Journal unequivocally did not publish this survey. Period.

I don't receive the Journal. All I know is what was on the website. It WAS published on the website. That has now been changed to be a link. Thank you for bringing it to my attention. However, it's incorrect to say they didn't publish it "period." It's not that simple. I got the article from a NEJM website. The distinction you're making is important--I didn't realize it wasn't actually published in the Journal itself. But my point that a NEJM website has a little more credibility than Fox News is also an important distinction. The fact that they still carry links to the study, and haven't disputed it themselves, means that the study hasn't been falsified.

Notice how this one discloses its methodology in clear and mathematical terms. While the one you posted, again not from the NEJM itself, was "randomly selected" from an ad-hoc database of doctors who subscribe to a newsletter.

The methodology was discussed in the article, and the original article included links to more detailed discussion of the methology, which I didn't include in my quote. I don't see the problem with a "random selection." If it wasn't random, wouldn't that introduce selection bias?

Like I said, a quick look at the URL would have told you that this was no New England Journal of Medicine survey, but one posted (decidedly not published) by a supplementary publication.

I never said it was a NEJM survey. In fact, I had no idea they even conduct their own surveys. I thought all they did was publish other people's work. The article I quoted explicitly stated the source of the survey, so I thought it was transparent and noncontroversial.

I dispute (a) the legitimacy of the source in direct contrast to your characterization of it and (b) the survey's methodology, which is neither clear nor disclosed and possibly illegitimate.

There is nothing illigitimate about the methodology. It was disclosed. In fact, the criticisms you've levied are virtually direct quotes from the article I posted. Did you read it? If you want to question the legitimacy of the source, that's your prerogative. Obviously, the NEJM seems to think they've made a mistake in publishing it on their website, or they wouldn't have retracted it, so you have a valid complaint. But as the issue stood when I posted, there was no indication that the NEJM had a problem with it. So my "characterization" wasn't the problem.

. . . which you probably heard about in one of the sources cited by Media Matters, because it affirmed your own suspicions, when in fact it was published elsewhere.

Yes, I did hear about it on the O'Reilly Factor. And yes, it did confirm my own suspicions. None of that disproves the survey.

Good to have you back, by the way.