Posted by
Andrews on Wednesday, October 21, 2009 3:52:11 PM
I argued before (in "
Professional Education" and "
Business Licensing and Regulation") that professional societies exist almost entirely to erect barriers against competition in order to raise the salaries of members. I also argued there and in "
Medical Regulations" and "
Medical Regulation II" that such regulations as societies impose tend to perpetuate errors and prevent certain types of innovation, in addition to keeping costs high. What I failed to mention was one additional harm that came to my attention today.
It is a harm I should have known, as my father spent his life working for a union. (Or rather two, first the Maryland Law Enforcement Officers and later the FOP for Amtrak.) And though he would mouth the party line about unions helping the working man, when it came to his specific union he had nothing but the harshest criticisms, claiming the union bosses did nothing for the members, and just accepted huge paychecks to do nothing but lounge about in fancy offices and give away his dues to politicians.
All of which came to mind while
reading about the deal the AMA cut with the Obama administration. In order to remove a particular troubling aspect of Medicaid billing, the AMA has basically thrown its lot in with the health care reformers. In other words, whatever individual doctors might think, their professional organization has officially given their seal of approval to this plan, like it or not.
And that is the other harm done by professional organizations. While a few do not require membership (the ABA, oddly enough being one), many do, if not nationally, at least on the state level, which means that for an individual to belong to a profession he must also belong to an organization, and that organization then feels free to pretend he gives his support to whatever political cause it sees fit, even to the point of contributing part of his dues.
Even if a profession does not require membership, the certifying body still has quite a bit of prestige by virtue of being the certifying body, and the general public tends not to distinguish between, say, the ABA and individual lawyers, very well. And so, when the ABA adopts a position, it is common for the public to think that position represents the belief of lawyers. In other words, the political views of a hnadful of administrators can be taken by the public as the educated opinion of the entire profession.
Worse still, often those opinions are not even those of the organizations' bosses. As such certifying bodies hold their position by political influence, and because the government can easily take away their privileged position, they are remarkably open to political pressure.Yes, they also wield political influence thanks to the money they control, but that goes only so far. When an issue is truly important to politicians it is very tempting to apply some pressure on the professional organizations, or perhaps negotiate some sort of quid pro quo, and thus have the government's position passed off as the erudite opinion of the august professional organization.
It may sounds relatively minor compared to the economic harm I documented elsewhere, but that is only because it is less obvious. But if the AMA's endorsement of ObamaCare convinces citizens that doctors think it is a good plan, and thus persuades some to support it who otherwise would not, then the potential harm is immeasurable. And that alone would make a good argument against granting such powers to professional organizations.