Licensing, Regulation, and a Free-Market in Healthcare

 When most people consider healthcare deregulation they have mental  images of quacks with rusty scalpels butchering their unfortunate  customers, and feel relieved that good ole’ Uncle Sam is watching out  for them. This is founded on false assumptions and propaganda. 

Many people assume that if healthcare is of a poor (relatively  speaking) quality, that means that it causes harm, and it would be  beneficial if its production were forcefully stopped. Poor quality  healthcare is not necessarily harmful(harm being defined as a reduction  in wellbeing, or an increase in uneasiness) because some people prefer  healthcare of a lower quality, therefore by definition it brings about a  perceived benefit(benefit defined as an individual’s advancement  towards their subjectively valued ends) to those individuals at the time  of the sale (otherwise they wouldn’t buy it). Furthermore, the people  who do prefer low-quality healthcare are hurt by the forceful prevention  of the production of this care because there is a loss of benefit to  that person; if the individual valued low-quality healthcare more than  no healthcare or a higher-quality healthcare, that would mean that the  person valued the high-quality healthcare or no healthcare at all less  than the low-quality care, so banning the production of low-quality  healthcare would cause the person to accept the next most valued  alternative, thereby bringing about a decrease in benefit (harm) to the  individual the ban was supposed to help, thereby defeating the purpose  of the ban(to benefit people by getting rid of low-quality healthcare).  Licensing and regulation are the most detrimental to the poor because  they make the poor pay for expensive, unaffordable healthcare, which  consumes a larger percentage of their income relative to wealthier  individuals, or make healthcare impossible for them to obtain. In short,  it is impossible to determine what constitutes “good” or “bad”  healthcare for others – only individuals can determine that for  themselves because whatever standard is being used can only be  subjective to the value judgments of the individual making it, which  means that any attempt to stop others from purchasing or producing  healthcare is harmful, particularly to the poor.

If regulations and licensing can only be hurtful, why do people  believe in and advocate for them? We can only guess, but there are a two  likely motivations. First: ignorance. The common justification for  regulations and licensing has a plausibility on it’s surface, and is  easily accepted by people who don’t want to look into it further.  Second: government-enforced monopoly. Regulations and licensing keeps  those who don’t meet the requirements from competing with those who do.  Decreased competition means higher profits, which means that it is in  the interest of doctors’ unions and pharmaceutical companies to lobby  for legislation that would restrict the permitted providers of  healthcare to the lobbyists and prevent competition: regulations and  licensing. Hence, most regulations and licensing is not so much focused  on protecting people, but focused on making it cost-prohibitive and  difficult to qualify for becoming a producer of healthcare. The FDA drug  approval process which denies people access to life-saving and  life-improving drugs so that drug manufacturers can prevent competing  drugs from being produced and forbidding experienced doctors who  received their medical education in a foreign country from practicing  medicine so that doctors educated in the United States have a monopoly  on medical care are two of the most obvious examples. The American  Medical Association is a government backed doctor’s union that is  responsible for much of the legislation and restrictive requirements  related to medical practice – if the supply of doctors is restricted,  their price increases. The AMA not only restricts people from competing  with it’s members, but it also regulates which medical practitioner can  practice which aspect of medicine and which colleges and universities  “qualify” to give medical degrees and how big their class sizes are to  be. The DEA and the FDA requiring prescriptions for the purchase of some  pharmaceuticals is designed to benefit doctors by forcing people to pay  a doctor to be able to purchase medicine. Also dangerous is that these  organizations like the AMA and FDA put their official stamp of approval  on healthcare providers, drugs, and devices, and lull people who believe  these government organizations exist for their safety into a dangerous  false sense of security. To conclude, licensing and regulations exist  because special interests want to rob people, and the government is more  than happy to accept lobbyists money in exchange for that power, and  because people are bombarded with propaganda and not exposed to the  truth. 

What would free-market healthcare look like? Although it may seem  counter-intuitive, the quality would increase and the cost would  decrease, both of which would be caused by the increased competition. If  people cared about safety and quality(and everything suggests they do),  there could be rating companies which would inspect and rate the safety  and quality of the healthcare provider’s procedures and environment.  There would most likely be a contract between the provider of healthcare  and the customer that stated the procedures the healthcare provider  would follow(sterile equipment, doctors with medical degrees from good  colleges, nurses who had been trained in nursing, etc.), and the  provider would be liable for any complications resulting from  non-adherence to the contract, along with having to pay restitution to  the customer for fraud. People who purchased low-quality healthcare  would do so at their own risk. Medical innovation, unencumbered by the  FDA, would skyrocket. People could buy any drug they wanted, and  pharmacies could offer the service of a pharmacist who would advise what  drugs the customer should use, and the amount and frequency of use  along with the side effects. Anyone who wanted to provide education on  producing healthcare could. Simply put, anyone who desired to provide  healthcare could(whether anyone would accept it is another matter), and  anyone who wanted to purchase any kind of healthcare would not be  restricted from doing so. 

Needless to say, these reforms are not popular, but free-markets and  freedom are more necessary than ever to fix the broken healthcare system  that is too expensive, too primitive, and too callous to the needs of  healthcare recipients. Licensing and regulations exist to benefit big  pharmaceutical companies and doctor’s unions with monopoly prices by  severely restricting competition at the expense of everyone’s health and  prosperity.