ARNOLD KLING
August 14, 2011
The Top Political Contributors
August 11, 2011
Gender and the New Commanding Heights
August 11, 2011
Jamie Galbraith Makes an Assumption
August 11, 2011
Macroeconometrics: The Science of Hubris
August 10, 2011
Real and Nominal Bond Yields
BRYAN CAPLAN
August 14, 2011
The Effect of Thumb Sucking on Income
August 12, 2011
The Voice of Cold, Hard Truth to All Would-Be Educators
August 12, 2011
Ability, Morality, and Prosperity: A Paper and a Report
August 11, 2011
The Theory of Time and Frittering
August 10, 2011
Male Variance and the Remnants of the Gender Gap
DAVID HENDERSON
August 9, 2011
Hayek in "Unbroken", Part Two
August 8, 2011
Hayek in "Unbroken"
August 5, 2011
James Bovard on the Peace Corps
August 4, 2011
Summers Way Off on FDR and 1941
August 3, 2011
The "Amazon" Tax
SHARE
Do the requirements for licensing of medical professionals provide sufficient public benefits to justify the adverse effect that it has on the efficiency of health care delivery?
______________________----
It actually does not! Military Studies, quite well hidden, suggest a 11-month training program is sufficient to raise a College Graduate in Biology to a Proficiency level equivalent to a Doctor. Medical schools expect all Licensed personnel to be able to cut up a Corpse. They also severely limit the accepted Student levels of attendence.
The preventive nature of Malpractice is also particularly ineffective. A medically-trained Navy Seal or Green Beret can be sued as easily as a Doctor. lgl
But in the U.S., only a licensed physician is allowed to write the prescription for the antibiotic treatment. These sorts of rules and laws serve to support the incomes of medical professionals while raising costs to consumers.
D'you not think that every bod and his wife prescribing antibiotics for everything might, in the fullness of time, have something of a cost to consumers?
Ah, I just love you free traders. Free trade in EVERYTHING, human labor, cars, shoes, etc.......except drugs and national currencies, right?
This anti-reimportation is just more double standards from the free traders. You guys are worse than the French.
LGL,
My wife is an RN and spent considerably more than 11 months training to become proficient. I would not want a nurse tending to me without some measured level of knowledge. It could easily kill you.
Shouldn't your parable be that US surgeons who want to sell their services in Canada have to accept Canadian rates, even for Americans who travel to Canada for surgery? You make it sound coercive, yet no one forces the pharmaceutical companies to sell their wares in Canada.
No it isn't about free trade or anything like that, sorry. The Pharmas can do what they want, not allowing legal re-importation allows the Pharmas to not have to play the bad guy and limit the quantity they sell to our neighbors.
Restricted medical licensing is all about controlling the supply of physicians, it isn't even remotely about the quality. Just ask yourself how many kids take the MCATs multiple times, how many apply multiple times before getting into med school. Do you really think that additional year or two bulking up their application really makes them a better doctor? Ask your self another question: at which point in a routine medical exam do you need a access to a trained surgeon? Given the arsenal of diagnostic kits in use why not allow an RN to handle routine medical care. While I absolutely want an MD doing the job in te case of open heart surgery, I really don't need one to take a punch biopsy on a mole.
That said I am not suggesting that physicians bear the whole blame for our astronomical medical costs, or that they do not play an important role.
Lotterman's column does not address the reimportation issue. Why should US citizens not be allowed to buy products from other countries, even if they were originally made in the US?