Licensing As A Franchise

When a hospital receives a license to operate, it gets a valuable franchise. When a person or corporation receives a license to practice (or to employ practitioners to practice)  a health care profession or render health services, he or she or it gets a valuable franchise. The license is a barrier to competition. The public has provided the institution and the health care professional with an opportunity to render services and earn above-average incomes (compared to other Americans) with little regard for a specific reciprocal obligation of the health care professional to provide services to the public. Why shouldn't the public demand services from health institutions and professionals as a condition of licensure? Perhaps less of a focus on less high-tech glamorous and trivial services (check your local newspaper for ads), and a greater focus on important health services to the poor, services in underserved areas and public health services would be a reasonable and appropriate precondition to licensure.