Law Commons^™

Licensing Health Care Professionals: Has The United States Outlived The Need For Medical Licensure?, Gregory Dolin

All Faculty Scholarship

With an expanding market for what is now known as "complimentary and alternative" medicine (CAM), states are increasingly facing the issue of who can and who should be allowed to practice medicine. Of necessity, this question also concerns whom patients may see to treat their ailments.

This paper will argue that the struggle to define who is and who is not licensed to practice medicine is rather fruitless and will always leave patients with less choice than they desire. Part II will review the history of licensure in the United States. Parts III and IV will focus on benefits and …

Exploitation Of The Elite: A Case For Physician Unionization, Dionne L. Koller

All Faculty Scholarship

Our intuition tells us that physicians are elites, and therefore they cannot be exploited. Relying on this intuition, we adopt policies which attempt to provide a health care system that gives first-quality care, at the lowest prices, delivered through a “free-market” system. As the key gatekeepers to health care, physicians are thus caught in the middle. Top-notch American health care costs money and for-profit MCOs must watch their bottom line. Rationing, therefore, is key. The issue is, assuming we have decided that free-market health care is the solution, how much should physicians have to sacrifice in the name of the …