Practicing Medicine Should Not Require a License

[bitcoinfuture256]

I wrote this as a reply to a post of mine on Future Cities, and I decided that it should have its own post and discussion.  Hope that works with the norms around here, I'm still getting used to using bitcointalk.  I've edited the post a little bit to try and improve it.


I never really do get much enthusiasm for my ideas about eliminating medical licensure, but let me try to sell you on it:

Everyone owns their body, and should be able to choose any provider of their liking, weather they have a license/degree, or not, to do anything they'd like to them.

Medical care is very, very expensive.  In some cases, it's so expensive that patients can't afford it.  Reputation/feedback systems are cheap and easily available online.  There's a vast wealth of knowledge available online.  Anyone can learn basic (or even advanced) medical skills online, for free.  Providers can be ranked by the quality of the care that they provide in a reputation/feedback system (or systems).  This way, Doctors would compete with one another to provide the best care, instead of knowing that there's always a limited supply of medical care available because not so many folks are willing or able to attend medical school.  We could simultaneously lower cost AND improve quality of care.  

Thus, the standard needs to change.  All the rules around medicine need to change, to reflect bodily autonomy.  

Since you own your body, you should be in full control of your choice of healthcare provider.  But you're not!  If Jimmy thinks he can remove your tumor or whatever, and even makes an attempt, he can go to jail for practicing medicine without a license!  Thing is, Jimmy and a lot of other people probably could do that, but our regulations won't allow them to. 

AND

Without the hard and fast requirement for a degree or license, more people would practice medicine, and they'd do it at a lower cost.  

What I'm saying here is that since licensure restricts the supply of medical care and causes the price of medical care to reach unaffordable levels, medical licensure kills.

This is just another example of an entrenched industry looking out for itself.  Of course medical professionals and the medical industry generally push for legislation that restricts the supply of healthcare:  This legislation drives up prices in their industry!

Whatever country/city/state/whatever first adopts a policy that recognizes people's bodily autonomy (and thus their right to choose anyone to give them care) -- that state will be deeply enriched with innovative, low-cost medical care options.  You can see this a little tiny bit in "medical tourism," but someone needs to take the brakes off.  

Thank you for reading my rant.  I'd love to hear your thoughts!

[OgNasty]

I like the ideology, but in practice I think it would be catastrophic.  People don't always make the best decisions for themselves with regards to consequences they may not understand.  Particularly the elderly, uneducated, and those in need of medical attention.

[BADecker]

Why would you want a practitioner? Do you want to trust your life and health to somebody who is just practicing? Get somebody who knows what they are doing, rather than just practicing. Google "Private Membership Association."

[dvmmayowa]

Would you rather give your phone to a street begger to help you fix it?
Or probably call an electrician to paint your house?, definitely no. There are experts in the medical field, and thats why they have license for proper recognition, they have been well trained for whichever decisions they are taking on your health and that gives you more confidence than allowing your friend treat a tumour you think he can treat.
Remember life has no replacement, thats why you should always be careful of the kind of people that influences your health.

[Ucy]

I think testing drugs/foods for quality/safety and approving them is still necessary. I do not think governments are perfect in this areas though.

 I actually thought about similar idea recently. I wondered how foods/drugs(I only thought abt foods to be honest) can be safely sold peer-to-peer, in a decentralized community, without typical governments testing them for harmful/unhealthy substances. And I thought, why not have trained community members randomly pick/buy most of the  foods available on decentralized marketplace and test them for good/poor quality. The "testers" can determine if the foods are healthy or not, Or if ingredients used is exactly as labeled. Rating of the foods from normal customers is important, but  ratings from the trained testers should matter more.

[Ucy]

I think testing drugs/foods for quality/safety and approving them is still necessary. I do not think governments are perfect in this areas though.

 I actually thought about similar idea recently. I wondered how foods/drugs(I only thought abt foods to be honest) can be safely sold peer-to-peer, in a decentralized community, without typical governments testing them for harmful/unhealthy substances. And I thought, why not have trained community members randomly pick/buy most of the  foods available on decentralized marketplace and test them for good/poor quality. The "testers" can determine if the foods are healthy or not, Or if ingredients used is exactly as labeled. Rating of the foods from normal customers is important, but  ratings from the trained testers should matter more.

To make things easy for the testers, a simple guideline or template can be created for them by good health or related professionals. I guess you just needs to be trained, tested and own small testing equipments to qualify for the decentralized food testing job?

[Naida_BR]

Practicing Medicine SHOULD definitely require a License.
If you would be able to practice medicine without a license this means that you have a lack of knowledge and this should be catastrophic and it might also create disastrous viruses that would kill people.

[Negotiation]

No licenses are required for medical practice Because licensing is necessary for medical practice it is very harmful to the general public. We need to protect ourselves A license always creates restrictions on work. Many people will not understand this and will make decisions based on their own health.

[Cnut237]

Medical care is very, very expensive.  In some cases, it's so expensive that patients can't afford it.  Reputation/feedback systems are cheap and easily available online.  There's a vast wealth of knowledge available online.  Anyone can learn basic (or even advanced) medical skills online, for free.  Providers can be ranked by the quality of the care that they provide in a reputation/feedback system (or systems).  This way, Doctors would compete with one another to provide the best care, instead of knowing that there's always a limited supply of medical care available because not so many folks are willing or able to attend medical school.  We could simultaneously lower cost AND improve quality of care.

My thoughts are this would be awful. It would end up the same as anything, with cost proportional to quality. At the top end you'd have ultra-qualified world-leading surgeons charging huge amounts of money to perform routine operations to perfection, and at the bottom end you'd have some drunkard with a rusty hacksaw willing to remove body parts for a dollar. Quality of care would be determined solely by your ability to pay. Only the richest people would get the best care, average people would get average care, the poor and vulnerable would get disastrous care.

I understand your idea, but for me the implications are that it would exacerbate rather than alleviate the existing inequality. What we need instead is some mechanism whereby everyone gets the same standard of care irrespective of how much money they have. Provision of quality health care should be a human right. This is why nationalised healthcare is a good idea, paid for by everyone through taxes.

Most people, even if they claim to be against nationalised healthcare, still accept that pooling of risk is a good idea; most people have some form of insurance for a start. Nationalised healthcare is just that. Pooled risk, paid for through taxation.

[BADecker]

Practicing Medicine SHOULD definitely require a License.
If you would be able to practice medicine without a license this means that you have a lack of knowledge and this should be catastrophic and it might also create disastrous viruses that would kill people.

The simple act of practicing medicine shows that you don't have enough knowledge. Consider sports. The team practices all day long for weeks or months. Then they stop practicing long enough to play a game. Why would anybody want somebody who is practicing to practice on them? All that practicing means is that they don't know what they are doing yet.

Since medicine doesn't have anybody other than practitioners, stay away from it altogether if you want to remain healthy. I have to commend them in this one area, though. They are not lying about their qualifications. All of them are only practitioners (practicing), and they say it this way.

[peter0425]

the best way to prevent this so there are no much discussion?live healthy ,eat right exercise well and sleep enough.
be with people with positive thoughts and keep distance to those people that has negative views in Life,be with God and for sure you will not be needing either Practitioner or Professional in medical field .

[BADecker]

For a medically licensed person to treat people in ways not formally accepted by the medical community, or...

For a medically unlicensed person to treat people medically or as above...

Form or join a Private Membership Association (PMA).

A PMA is private. Loads of law state that government has the right and duty to act on the public, but has very limited right to act on the private. If people sign up for private medical or non-medical procedures to be done on them by other people, the whole thing is outside the purview of the public... as long as it remains private.

If this is true, why haven't people been doing this for decades? They have, in limited ways. But lately, it is becoming known. Essentially, with a PMA, you should be able to grow and use your own pot with other people, as long as they belong to the PMA.

The PMA simply lists the ways to keep the group private. It might include hold harmless clauses in its documentation. It might list all the laws and court cases that show the courts how government is to remain hands-off regarding PMAs... to use with government officials should they attempt to interfere with your private rights.

One example is the indecent exposure laws. How do nudist clubs get around these laws? They require formal membership. They keep their membership activities private by building walls around their "compounds." If members publicly talk about what goes on in the club, non-members are not allowed to take part until they join. These clubs are essentially PMAs.

Google and Youtube search on "Private Membership Association."