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Doctors and Individual Rights
By Thomas M. Miovas, Jr.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Doctors all over the United States are wondering what they are going to do as the State encroaches more and more on their freedom to practice their profession unhindered by regulations and laws that prevent them from doing their jobs in a professional manner. As ObamaCare and other socialized health regulations increase, the doctor will find that he can no longer do his profession in an adequate manner, because he will have to focus more and more on satisfying a government regulator not familiar with medication and healing the sick. He will have to follow rules and regulations or hire a staff to do this, and all the while his patients – his customer s – will receive less and less actual medical care. So, what is one supposed to do about this? I think it is important that the doctor comes to understand his individual rights and to stand up for them as he practices his profession.
The concept of Individual Rights means the right to be free of one’s fellow man so long as one is not injuring another through physical force. It means that a doctor has the inalienable right to practice his chosen profession in the manner he sees fit, without being considered guilty until proven innocent by some bureaucrat who doesn’t know the difference between a tonsil and a butter knife, or the difference between a virus infection and a bacterial infection. Just as in any other profession, the professional knows his job and can do it well without directions from Washington DC or any other State agency. And doctors need to understand that they have a right to practice their profession without interference, so long as they are not violating the rights of anyone else. And they need to understand that this is their *moral* right, that just as every other individual is free to practice his profession by his own intelligence and his own judgment, so too does the doctor have this right. It is moral for a doctor to deal directly with his patients to determine what is wrong with him and how to correct the problem; that just as an automobile mechanic doesn’t need a bureaucrat telling him how to supposedly fix an engine, so the doctor does not need a bureaucrat getting between him and his diagnosis.
The doctor has to come to understand that this is his *moral right* and that anyone who interferes with that scientific discovery of what ails his patients is immoral and even evil insofar as he stands in the way of a scientific diagnosis. And he needs to speak out about his moral right to practice his profession. He needs to say that he knows more than Washington DC and any other State bureaucrat when it comes to diagnosing his patients and that he will not stand for the State interfering with his profession. Such interference is immoral and evil, since it can mean the difference between life and death and health and illness. It is certain possible for others to make this type of statement, as I am, but I am not a doctor and I will not be the one enslaved by the State if we get socialized medicine in this country. My health may well suffer as I get decreased medical attention, but I won’t be directly enslaved. The doctor will be treated as a slave of the State, and he needs to rebel against this by telling the State to back off!
And, of course, all the above also applies to anyone else in the medical profession, the entire health care industry, pharmaceutical companies, and health insurance providers. ObamaCare and any other form of socialized medicine enslaves all of them -- not just the average American with the individual mandate to buy health insurance as dictated by the State.
For more information, I recommend “Man’s Rights” by Ayn Rand and apply it to your life as a professional.
Also, see the ARI webpage on ObamaCare.