A survey released this week by The Physicians' Foundation reveals an epidemic of dissatisfaction with the current U.S. health system among primary care doctors.

What's bringing up all the biliousness? Well, it certainly isn't because physicians feel they're enjoying too much freedom to offer patients the best and most affordable care possible.

On the contrary, the most prominent professional diagnosis of what ails the practice of basic medicine today is that reams of red tape is tying up care-providers' time, and too many meddling bureaucrats are manipulating relationships between MD's and care-consumers.

"The reported reasons for the widespread frustration among physicians include increased time dealing with non-clinical paperwork, difficulty receiving reimbursement and burdensome government regulations," according to the Foundation website."Physicians say these issues keep them from the most satisfying aspect of their job: patient relationships."

Some of the key findings of the Foundation's survey, which the authors tout as "one of the largest and most comprehensive physician surveys ever conducted in the United States":

• An overwhelming majority of physicians - 78% - believe there is a shortage of primary care doctors in the United States today
• 49% of physicians - more than 150,000 doctors nationwide - said that over the next three years they plan to reduce the number of patients they see or stop practicing entirely. In that same time frame:
• 11%, or more than 35,000 doctors nationwide, said they plan to retire
• 13% said they plan to seek a job in a non-clinical healthcare setting, which would remove them from active patient care
• 20% said they will cut back on patients see
• 10% said they will work part-time
• 60% of doctors would not recommend medicine as a career to young people
• 63% of doctors said non-clinical paperwork has caused them to spend less time with their patients
• 94% said time they devote to non-clinical paperwork in the last three years has increased
• 17% of physicians rated the financial position of their practices as "healthy and profitable"
• If they had the financial means, 45% of doctors would retire today
• "Patient relationships" rated highest on the list of things physicians find satisfying about medicine, while "reimbursement issues" and "managed care issues" rated the highest on the list of issues physicians find unsatisfying about medicine
• 6% of physicians described the professional morale of their colleagues as "positive." 42% of physicians said the professional morale of their colleagues is either "poor" or "very low"
• 78% of physicians said medicine is either "no longer rewarding" or "less rewarding"