Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site ucbvax.ARPA Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!ucbvax!mcgeer From: mcgeer@ucbvax.ARPA (Rick McGeer) Newsgroups: net.politics.theory Subject: Re: Credentials, State vs. private Message-ID: <10431@ucbvax.ARPA> Date: Thu, 19-Sep-85 00:57:25 EDT Article-I.D.: ucbvax.10431 Posted: Thu Sep 19 00:57:25 1985 Date-Received: Fri, 20-Sep-85 05:01:30 EDT References: <4297@alice.UUCP> <1565@umcp-cs.UUCP> <126@l5.uucp> <760@cybvax0.UUCP> Reply-To: mcgeer@ucbvax.UUCP (Rick McGeer) Organization: University of California at Berkeley Lines: 68 In article <760@cybvax0.UUCP> mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) writes: >In article <126@l5.uucp> laura@l5.UUCP (Laura Creighton) writes: >> In article <1565@umcp-cs.UUCP> mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate) writes: >> >The problem with this is that in fact people aren't well enough informed to >> >judge in general, and that changes in reputation generally lag changes in >> >actuality considerably, often being completely unrelated to reality. A >> >person living in rural Tennessee often does not have the resources available >> >to find out whether the slick young man is really from Harvard, as he claims >> >to be. >> >> Okay, it sounds to me like there is a market for doctor-verification here. >> The prospective patients will want this and the doctors will want this a >> great deal. So someone will set up a doctor-verification agency. (Actually, >> it will probably be more general than just doctor verification -- in >> Libertaria this problem is going to crop up again and again.) It will >> be constrained to be honest by the same constraints that make the AMA >> (or Consumer Reports, or a high-minded public official) honest -- because >> it will be staffed by people who are genuinely concerned with the problem, >> because it will be staffed by people who are honoroable, because it will >> loose all its customers if it prints lies and because people will sue it >> for fantastic sums of money if it doesn't. > >I don't think this would work for the majority of people, and I think >Charley is right, popular judgement about medicine is unrealistic. >Consider diet plans for example. They are unregulated. Is there a diet-plan >verification agency (public or private)? Well, there's no shortage of >sound medical advice about the dangers of diet plans, and what works. >Do people heed it? No. They need only ask their doctors, but instead >they prefer to dream, and make the diet industry one of the largest food- >related industries in America. The point is, it's their bodies and their dream. Not your business. The other point is that there are therapies and drugs currently banned in the USA, but permitted elsewhere, which might or might not be succesful. Regulation discourages experiment and innovation, and hence progress. See "Free To Choose" for a full discussion of the full costs of health industry regulation. And, I might add, the size of the diet industry is an effective stimulant to researchers to develop therapies that do work (as some on the market do). If you REALLY BELIEVE that the government should certify doctors for the patients' good, why not permit uncertified doctors to practice? That way, patients can decide for themselves if they want to be treated by an uncertified doctor -- and hospitals can decide if they want uncertified doctors on their payroll. Why this decision should be made in Washington is beyond me. > >Why are people so foolish? Got me. However, they are bombarded with >outrageous advertising claims continually. And it doesn't pay anyone to >advertise that something doesn't work. Sure it does! You haven't seen many computer or cleanser adds recently. > >Remove the restrictions on medical practice, and you open up a huge can >of worms of this sort. People will choose the quack who makes them feel >best about their medical service; because he tells them "yes, take that >drug", because he makes outrageous claims for their health if they follow >his advice, because he tells them their aura gets better and better every >time they visit. And how could anyone sue for malpractice, without some >implicit standard of medical practice? "You didn't diagnose that cancer!" >"That wasn't a cancer, it was an evil spirit, and the patients will wasn't >strong enough. I can't cure everybody." Good point. But it is their business. And, as for malpractice suits, I don't see the problem. Welders aren't certified, but you can certainly sue for a faulty weld. Mike, why don't you get over this nasty itch you have to run other people's lives? -- Rick.