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From: abeles@mhuxm.UUCP (abeles)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: The medical industry is not regulated?
Message-ID: <316@mhuxm.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 13-Feb-85 12:48:04 EST
Article-I.D.: mhuxm.316
Posted: Wed Feb 13 12:48:04 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 14-Feb-85 02:25:56 EST
References: <243@mhuxr.UUCP> <3381@alice.UUCP>
Organization: Bell Communications Research, Murray Hill, NJ
Lines: 26

> The claim that medical fees are not regulated is also false.  While
> the government does not set doctors' fees directly (yet), those fees
> are kept artificially high by government regulations that make it
> artificially difficult for people to become physicians.  Specifically,
> one needs a license to practice medicine.  In order to qualify for that
> license, you must go through a government-approved course of study.
> Since the people who determine the nature of that course of study
> are all license-holders themselves, they have a vested interest
> in making it as difficult as possible for others to obtain their
> licenses, so as to minimize competition.
> 
See the Sunday NY Times, 10 Feb 85, for an article concerning the drop
in professional school, including med school, enrollments.  There are
now about 70,000 students in med schools in the US.  A number of med
schools have reduced their enrollments not because of lack of applicants
per se, but because of a lack of applicants able to pass the muster on
their high standards.  Dental school enrollments are down by approaching
50% from their peak, I believe (it is not too difficult to get in to
dental school today at all).  All professional schools, according to the
article, face problems of oversupply of their graduates, including
medical schools, law schools, and dental schools in particular.  The kind
of people who formerly went into many of these fields today are programming
computers, just like the majority of the readers here.  Leave me out,
though, of the latter classification.

--J. Abeles