Eliminating Clinical Licenses and Health Care Services

Arguments and counter arguments on the issue of clinical licensure for health care providers were examined. One research question is investigated in this examination. This research examined the likely effects on health care services of the elimination of clinical licensure for health care providers?

Strong arguments exist on each side of the issue of clinical licensure. Certainly, health providers are in a conflict of interest situation in an environment characterized by clinical licensure, as provider self-interests cannot help but influence the decisions of licensing authorities. Conversely, while the argument that consumers should assume greater responsibility for their own health is valid, the sad fact is that a large proportion of consumers would fall prey to quacks and other frauds in a health care services environment that was completely devoid of clinical licensure.

This research examines the arguments and counter arguments on the issue of clinical licensure for health care providers. Professor Milton Friedman (1992) has received a great deal of attention for his position favoring an end to clinical licensure; however, he was neither the first to advocate the position, he has not been the last to advocate this position, and he certainly has not mounted the strongest economic argument for eliminating clinical licensure for health care providers. I

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article that "if consumers 'desire' high-fat foods, or environmentally-destructive products, or sex-for-hire, so be it" (1970, p. C1). The Council (1978) concluded that clinical licensure laws "assume that unrealistic claims and false hopes occur only outside the medical profession. Yet the sick and injured may be even more vulnerable to exploitation by M.D.s. Thus medical licensure does not in itself protect consumers from quackery. It only helps to cover up quackery among licensed physicians" (p. 4). One of the early arguments against physician licensure laws was that such laws prevented individuals from seeking the services of such professional providers as nurse practitioners directly; causing individuals instead to go through physicians for all health care services. This argument held that health care prices could be lowered through an end to this restriction. Since this argument was first offered, most states have licensed nurse practitioners are primary health care providers, and the price for health care obtained directly through nurse practitioners has proved to be lower than that obtained through physicians. Friedman's argument, however, is that all clinical licensure laws should be abolished, which would enable
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Approximate Word count = 2811
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page)

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