Physicians Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Physicians - Essay Example Allowing people to select their own doctors will decrease the health care costs in the economy. This move will create an environment whereby Physicians will compete for clients thus leading to better services since physicians will be expecting more referrals from satisfied consumers (Dingwall 59). Doctors should not be licensed. According to the proponents of licensing, information asymmetries in the medical filed is the main aim of licensing since the government needs to protect consumers. Patients do not have prior knowledge of the quality of services to be provided but word-of mouth through referrals and doctor reputation can solve the information asymmetry problem (Dingwall 88). The consumer has still considerable market power since he can shop elsewhere for medical services if the service provided is either expensive or poor thus improving the quality of medical services. Licensing alone is not the best solution to protect the consumers since certification is enough to rid out the incompetent health service providers. Proponents of licensing argue that it makes the licensed Physicians provide competent services in an ethical manner since it makes them accountable for the health outcomes of patients (Dingwall 97). If there was no licensing, the price of Physician services will decline since there would be more competition among the physicians thus leading to reduction in costs. The need to comply with the licensing requirements also increases the costs of services and leads to more litigations that also raise the prices of services (Shi and Singh 78). If the medical field was not regulated, the quality of medical care would increase. Licensing reduces the number of available physicians and inflates the medical costs that limiting the access of health care by the poor population. Licensing also stifles