Medical freedom

Health
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The constitution upholds the values of freedom and individual autonomy, yet excessive government regulations in healthcare hinder these principles.

Regulations limit doctors’ ability to practice independently and restrict patients’ access to quality care. Politicians, often without medical expertise, impose rules that stifle innovation and efficiency within the healthcare system.

ISSUES

  1. Overregulation of Medical Education:

Opening a new medical college in the U.S. currently costs around $200 million and takes approximately 7 years, mainly due to stringent government regulations. These barriers limit the establishment of new medical schools, contribute to physician shortages, and reduce opportunities for aspiring medical professionals.

  1. Barriers for Experienced Medical Immigrants:

Many highly qualified doctors from other countries are eager to work in the U.S., but they face complicated immigration processes and licensing hurdles. This prevents the healthcare system from benefiting from their expertise and exacerbates physician shortages, especially in underserved areas.

  1. Barriers to Independent Medical Practice:

Doctors encounter numerous obstacles that make it difficult to establish and maintain independent practices. These include restrictive licensing requirements, burdensome administrative regulations, and limitations imposed by insurance companies and reimbursement systems. Such barriers reduce doctors’ autonomy and can limit patients’ access to personalized care.

PROPOSED POLICIES

  1. Reduce Regulations for Opening New Medical Colleges:

Action: Streamline the approval process and eliminate unnecessary regulatory barriers that make it difficult and expensive to establish new medical schools.

Benefit: Encouraging the development of new medical colleges will increase the number of trained physicians, enhance competition, and improve access to medical education.

  1. Facilitate Immigration for Experienced Doctors:

Action: Simplify immigration and licensing processes for qualified international medical graduates by recognizing their credentials and experience.

Benefit: Attracting skilled doctors from abroad will help alleviate physician shortages, bring diverse expertise into the healthcare system, and improve patient care nationwide.

  1. Remove Barriers to Independent Practice:

Action:

Simplify Licensing Requirements: Implement a national medical license or facilitate license reciprocity among states to allow doctors to practice across state lines without redundant processes.

Reduce Administrative Burdens: Streamline documentation, reporting, and compliance requirements to lessen the time and resources doctors spend on non-clinical tasks.

Eliminate Certificate of Need (CON) Laws: Repeal laws that require doctors to obtain government approval before expanding services or facilities, allowing them to respond directly to patient needs.

Benefit: Empowering doctors to establish and run independent practices will increase healthcare accessibility, especially in rural and underserved areas. It will also enable more personalized patient care and encourage innovation within the healthcare system.

By implementing these policies, we can reduce unnecessary government intervention in healthcare and align the system with the foundational American values of freedom and autonomy. Trusting medical professionals to apply their expertise without undue regulatory constraints will enhance the quality of care, increase access to medical services, and create a more efficient and responsive healthcare system.

3 Likes
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Get the government out of the medical business. Separation of hospital and state is as important as separation of church and state.

3 Likes
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Healthcare should be free across-the-board for all legal citizens. Other countries do it and they are quite successful. Why can’t we ?

Mental health should become the forefront of medical care.

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First step is making graduation of medical college students free from the government dictates, otherwise there will never be enough doctors.

With high demand and low offer, a socialized healthcare offered by the government would be a disaster. Instead of getting financially broke for a treatment, we would die in the line waiting for one.

Pricing unfortunately is the best way to distribute scarce resources, but for it to work better (actually work at all) we need to get the government out of the equation: from insurances, colleges, medical practice, everything.

If government is part of that pricing equation, we favor the business man that wants to make the most money now over the ones that actually think about the wellness of people and therefore want to make money in the long term.

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I believe the regulations that you listed and many more were lobbied for by the American Medical Association. There was a dateline special about this when Clinton was in office or maybe before Clinton was in office talking about how the American medical association sometimes wouldn’t let doctors who had graduated get their medical license they weren’t always willing to let foreigners be doctors and I understand that we shouldn’t be taking the educated healthy away from poor countries. But yeah a lot of that is by design and it wasn’t by a politician’s design it was by their design to keep the prices up.

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Lucas,
Please see my post from yesterday. I have laid out a plan how to accomplish some of your proposals. I agree with your post completely. We need to increase private practice physicians in America.
My post is labeled " Assisting and Sustaining the Ability for Private Practice Physicians to Thrive, Restore Provider Autonomy, and Decrease Government Regulations". I even have an executive order posted. I look forward to you r comments.
Scott Tzorfas, MD