Doctors say: Don't spy on us

After coming under fire from politicians, who complained about redundancy in research, and doctors who disliked having the Government look into their business, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has dropped a plan which would have taken a close look at the practices of doctors offices across 9 states when it came to accepting new patients, and rather there was any kind of bias based on the supposed new patient's health care plan.

The survey, which would have been carried out by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago, would have investigated over 4,000 doctor's offices for any indication that the doctors selectively accepted or turned away patients based on the type of insurance the patient had - in particular focusing on government health care options such as Medicaid and Medicare.

After objections to the proposed survey it was placed on indefinite hold on Tuesday with a spokesman for Health and Human Services stating, “After reviewing feedback received during the public comment period, we have determined that now is not the time to move forward with this research project. Instead, we will pursue other initiatives that build on our efforts to increase access to health care providers nationwide.”