Our fanboyism on ATUL GAWANDE is well-established: we think he should be surgeon general. Brilliant medical writer. Brilliant medical thinker. One of the very few essential voices to emerge out of the bar-brawl of the health-care debate. Local guy. Knows what it's like for someone to yell "FUCK YOU" at him in the middle of a reading

A survey of 2,130 physicians across the nation found 63 percent favor a public-private option for patients over a strictly private health care system or public. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine yesterday and was conducted by the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York.