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From: mfs@mhuxr.UUCP (SIMON)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: The medical industry is not regulated?
Message-ID: <256@mhuxr.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 22-Feb-85 09:05:51 EST
Article-I.D.: mhuxr.256
Posted: Fri Feb 22 09:05:51 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 24-Feb-85 03:09:50 EST
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Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill
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> > Are you really suggesting that the way to lower health care costs is
> > to loosen the standards required to practice medicine??
> > Marcel Simon
> 
> Think about all the activities that you take part in each and every day
> that, were someone important to have made foolish decisions, could leave
> you dead.  Ever drive a car above 30 miles per hour?  Were the designers
> of the car government certified?  Do you know how many people could die
> if electricity were to be cut off to large sections of a city because a
> computer program failed?  Should all those programmers be government
> certified?
> 
> 	--Cliff

A car does have to pass certain safety standards (seat belts, 5 MPH bumpers
etc) and I have to be certified (driver's license) and the car has to
be recertified each year (inspection). If the kind of blackout you
describe did have the effects you cite (not at all obvious. did anything
of the sort happen after the two big New York blackouts of 1965 and 1977)
the utility would for sure not get any kind of rate increase, and have
to pay some heavy fines, a powerful incentive not to screw up.

But all this is besides the point. I drive the car myself, so as long
as the car maker provides regulated safety standards, if I use them
improperly or not at all, I only have myself to blame. I have no
such recourse when I am prescribed some drugs by a physician, or
if I am being operated on. I HAVE to trust that doctor. The only
basis for that confidence is that thge doctor has undergone
some training before being able to practice medicine.
The original posting (by Koenig) proposed the loosening of
these requirements to insure better medical practice and lower costs.
I argue that would be folly, and would invite quacks to provide
inferior medical service, supposedly at lower cost.

Marcel Simon