Medical Control, Medical Corruptionrnby Llewellyn H. Rockwell, JrrnThe vested interests are sick over it: Americans arc beginning,rnjust slightly, to take charge of their own health care.rnSuch best-sellers as the Doctor’s Book of Home Remedies, thernPhysician’s Desk Reference, and the Merck Manual can keep yournout of the doctor’s appropriately named waiting room, or atrnleast help you understand what is being done to you, when anrnapple a day does not work.rnWho is unhappy with this increased knowledge? The AmericanrnMedical Association, which for almost 150 years hasrnsought to institutionalize a rip-off and to keep sick people andrntheir families oblivious to it. Thanks to this central committeernof the medical cartel, the number of medical schools andrnmedical students is drastically restricted, state licensure furtherrnobstructs the supply of doctors, fees are largely secret and controlledrnacross the industry, alternative treatments and practitionersrnare outlawed, pharmacists and nurses are hamstrung,rnand the mystique of the profession rivals the priesthood, althoughrnpriests have a somewhat lower income. Meanwhile, therncustomer pays through the nose, even if he docs not go to anrnotolaryngologist.rnMedicaid and Medicare have contributed to the problem,rnbut the medical cartel is the original sin. Through its ability tornkeep incomes high by limiting supply and outlawing competition,rnorganized medicine has punished its customers, althoughrnthe word is never used so as to disguise what is, after all, an economicrnrelationship.rnLlewellyn H. Rockwell, ]r., is president of the Ludwigrnvon Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama. He is formerrneditor of a journal of “regular” medical economics.rnI lillary Clinton’s proposed merger of the medical cartel andrnthe state seems like a radical move, and it is. It is also the logicalrnnext step in the partnership of government and medicine.rnThat is why, in addition to opposing Hillary hammer andrntongs, we should reexamine the AMA’S distortion of the medicalrnmarketplace and the very idea of medical licensure.rnCompetition among providers—as with any service in arnmarket economy—leads to rational pricing and maximumrnconsumer choice. But this is exactly what the AMA has alwaysrnsought to prevent. The American Medical Association, organizedrnin New York in 1848, advanced two seemingly innocentrnpropositions in its eady days: that all doctors should have arn”suitable education” and that a “uniform elevated standard ofrnrequirements for the degree of M.D. should be adopted by allrnmedical schools in the llS.” These were part of the AMA’srnreal program, which was openly discussed at its conventions andrnin the medical journals: to secure a government-enforcedrnmedical monopoly and high incomes for mainstream doctors.rnMembership in the new organization was open only to “regular”rnphysicians, whose therapies were based on the “best systemrnof physiology and pathology, as taught in the best schoolsrnin Europe and America.” The public had a different view,rnhowever. Official treatments of the time, such as bloodlettingrnand mercury poisoning, harmed and sometimes murdered patients,rncausing mass outrage.rnEmphatically not included among the “best” were thernhomeopaths. Homeopathy, a less invasive system that stillrnthrives in Britain and Europe, may have done no good, but thatrnwas the worst charge lodged against it. Homeopathy did notrnkill people, as orthodox medicine did. The homeopaths actu-rnJUNE 1994/17rnrnrn