10 Reasons Health Providers Give Thanks

6. A spokesman for the American Medical Association, Robert Mills, would remark to the entire stakeholder family that doctors are grateful for health reform proposals that have brought us the "closest we have ever been to securing access to high quality, health insurance coverage for 46 million uninsured."

7. They'd give praise to the White House for directing $25 million to the states to implement and test tort reforms in pilot studies of projects like health courts and safe harbors, something they felt was out of reach in a Republican administration, and even more unexpected in a Democratic one.

8. They'd express gratitude that a database they believed allowed insurers to set artificially low reimbursement rates for out-of-network care was shut down.

9. As the mince meat and pumpkin pie was being sliced, they'd give thanks for $36 billion in federal support for physicians to adopt health information technologies, although they'd worry about how they'd make time and room for it in their practices. And they'd pray that it does not give them indigestion.

10. And last, doctors would say thanks to Congress for passing an ambitious law that for the first time allows the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco products, controlling addictive nicotine as well as the packaging and marketing of cigarettes.