ABSTRACT
The American medical profession developed a high standard of medical care that was unequaled anywhere in the world, indeed a fair exchange, it would seem. Historically the medical profession in the United States has been independent of regulation beyond the usual stringencies of the marketplace. The worry that unionization by doctors will strip them of their professional dignity and invite the imposition of even more controls is laughable. The basic conflict between insurance carriers and the medical profession, however, is a philosophical one. The hospital empires that have been built are crumbling—model “medical centers” are going bankrupt—and the legions of hospital administrators are attempting to salvage their status and their very raison d'etre by grasping for control over all health care delivery during the period of great transition. Government officials proclaim that health care is different from other goods and services—forgetting that food, clothing, and housing, industries of at least as basic necessity, are heavily unionized.
