NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - With many different groups expressing dissatisfaction with the US healthcare system, sentiment for "radical reform" is growing, a new poll suggests.

In the past, the public has been more dissatisfied with the healthcare system than have physicians, employers and health administrators, according to nationwide surveys by Harris Interactive ( news - external web site). But now a new Harris poll finds significant narrowing in the differences among those groups' points of view.

Doctors soured on healthcare beginning in 1999 and have remained less satisfied than they have been in the past. Harris believes doctors' negative views reflect lingering anger about managed care.

With health plans loosening restrictions on doctors, physician attitudes have perked up a bit in the past two years, the poll found. Still, doctors' sentiments are more negative now than at any time between 1984 and 1997, Harris noted.

Health plan managers also have grown notably more dour than they were three years ago, the poll found. And while employers are more satisfied than the public, they expressed more hostility this year than in any previous survey, Harris said.

Public support for a major overhaul of the healthcare system remains strong. While 17% think the system works pretty well, almost twice as many (31%) think it needs to be rebuilt.

Harris calculated a "radical change" score for each group based on its "overall view" of the country's healthcare system. Respondents were asked to indicate whether they believe that the nation's healthcare system works pretty well and requires only minor changes, that it has "good things" about it but needs fundamental change; or that so much is wrong that it needs to be completely rebuilt.

The public's radical change was highest, at 56, followed by hospital managers (51), employers (48) and health plans (50). Physicians scored lowest, at 46.

The poll was conducted between April and June with separate samples of 1,013 adults, 406 physicians, 301 employers, 101 health plan managers and 301 hospital managers. Data for previous years were derived from similar surveys.