Doctors Make Obama White House Call For Health Insurance Overhaul

Though doctors in their white lab coats have lost some of their god-like authority figure status for many Americans, they're still highly respected in the social pecking order.

So the White House Rose Garden brought in scores of doctors Monday and made sure they got the message to wear their lab coats so President Barack Obama could have visuals of them with him. Those images would send the message that many doctors believed as he does that the cure for the nation's health care woes is the kind of overhaul he envisions.

Obama thanked this particular group of doctors, gathered in the White House Rose Garden, making it look like a hospital courtyard, for being willing to act as emissaries for health-care reform.

And I want to thank every single doctor who is here, and I especially want to thank you for agreeing to fan out across the country and make the case about why this reform effort is so desperately needed. You are the people who know this system best. You are the experts. Nobody has more credibility with the American people on this issue than you do.

 

And so if you're willing to speak out strongly on behalf of the things you care about and what you see each and every day as you're serving patients all across the country, I'm confident we are going to get health reform passed this year.

Obama was clearly speaking to the choir when it comes to health care overhaul. As a measure of how ready most doctors are for serious changes, in a poll published by the New England Journal of Medicine in September—62.9 percent—said they supported the idea of a public option in a health care overhaul.