That is the ultimate goal of our anti-conceptual leaders, and to the extent that we’ll let them. As they attempt to work their way towards that goal, our standard of living will suffer in every aspect. One of the most intimidating venues is the socialization of medicine. Those in the medical field are already responding as any individual subjected to the threat of slavery would, resistance and avoidance.

In the last several months there have been reports in medical journals about an impending shortage of primary care physicians. This spring in the health policy journal Health Affairs, researchers at the University of Missouri-Columbia and the federal Department of Health and Human Services published a study that projected a generalist physician shortage of 35,000 to 44,000 by the year 2025. The researchers based their figures on current physician usage patterns and did not take into account increases that might occur because of rising access to health care.

The news got worse in September, when The Journal of the American Medical Association published a study showing that just 2 percent of graduating medical students are choosing to enter general internal medicine. The students surveyed were concerned in part by what they perceived to be a more difficult personal and professional lifestyle, compared with other fields. They felt that the paperwork and charting required of primary care physicians were more onerous, and they were not eager to care for the chronically ill in a health care system that focuses on acute care. [emphasis mine]

This phase of typically oppressive red tape at all levels is only the very beginning of the collectivist vision of medicine. Not only are those currently in the field looking to escape, individuals aspiring to work in and around the medical field are considering other options. Pharmaceutical, medical equipment and biotechnology sales are fields that will see less growth as a result of regulatory stagnation.

Nearly half of them said they planned in the next three years to reduce the number of patients they see or to stop practicing altogether. While these doctors rated patient relationships as the most satisfying aspect of practice, over three-quarters felt they were at “full capacity” or “overextended and overworked.” [emphasis mine]

The reasons are simple. It’s in man’s nature to be free. His focus will gravitate towards the arena of return where he can most freely exercise choice. Conversely, short of tremendous potential for return, he’ll shy away from an environment where his volitional capacity is limited. So long as he respects the rights of other men to life, liberty and property, there is virtually no limit to his potential for productive return. Only when man has force initiated upon him do we see stagnation, shortages, depressions, credit crunches, famines, poverty and misery. What else, other than wholesale violation of rights via regulation, could create a shortage of human capital in what are arguably the most highly demanded industries?

Eventually the talented, the exceptional, the type of individual and mind one wants their life to depend on if needed, will be noticeably absent from the field of medicine. An independent and competent mind won’t submit to force, the type of mind that will won’t provide the quality of care that people demand. The result will be an abysmal circus of incompetency and regulation going through the motions of medicine while corpses pile up and citizens become desperate for other options. A black market for routine care will inevitably develop and many of us will have to choose to criminally act towards our survival or become a statistic in the collectivist death machine affectionately known as Universal Health Care.

All this because we’ve deluded ourselves into the poison that we are our “brother’s keepers”, and are willing to condone and implement force to sacrifice any individual for construction that deadly ideal.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 16th, 2008 at 12:56 pm and is filed under Misc., Health Care. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.