Is your doctor a greedy scumbag, or just a good Massachusetts liberal?

The most entertaining theater in this grand health care showdown has been that in which physicians play the victim. Look at homeboy right here; don't you just feel awful about the potential impact of "Obamacare"? Make you want to donate five cents a day so Dr. Dickstain can move from the bay side to the ocean?

Unsurprisingly, Glenn Beck and other Fox News comics have ambitiously courted docs to blast the House and Senate health care bills. That contrarian crop has included more than a few plastic surgeons, who must have worked miracles on one another to keep straight faces while gargling such transparently self-serving talking points. (My colleague Mike Miliard suggested that Fox keeps nip-tuckers on-hand to perform routine service on the network's fleet of plastic blonde whores).  

Like every other measure in the health care debate, it seems impossible to calculate how many MDs support the particular progress under way in Washington. Groups like the deceptively-named, doctor-designed Coalition to Protect Patients' Rights want you to believe there is an army of white coats behind them; but a September 10 D.C. march planned by the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons drew less than 1,000 supporters.

Here in Mass, our agitators are at least progressive. You might have noticed the ad on page A13 of Wednesday's Boston Globe headed: "To Our Patients - From Massachusetts Doctors." Placed by Physicians for a National Health Program - and signed by nearly 200 docs from across the state - the spot declares: "This is bad medicine: We need single payer national health insurance - Medicare for All."

As someone who is not about to blow kazoos and celebrate the gutted bill that might surface when the smoke clears, this approach puts me in a tough position. My instinct is to criticize these Mass doctors for concealing conservative gusto in left-friendly packaging; on the other hand I agree with them. Surely this deserves further vetting; but until then - if you have a check-up between now and the end of this grueling struggle - put your doc on the spot. Is she or he is a greedy fraud or not?