Should All Professionals Be Licensed? or Only Some? Discuss the Argument

Question

Examlex · Accepted Answer

The Answer is (This response uses the example of medical doctors. The argument for licensing has the same elements in all cases, but the relative weight is different.)
Licensure: Pro
The purpose of licensing medical doctors is to insure that persons in this profession have appropriate training and skills. Consumers of medical services are not in a very good position to evaluate the training or competency of doctors. Persons not trained in a profession do not have the basis for a sound judgment of the professional training of those who are professionals. This is a classic information problem. Licensure can address this problem by determining the minimum qualifications for medical competence, and mandating these requirements as a condition for practice. Unless persons meet this minimum, they do not qualify for licenses. With licensure, persons who otherwise would have no basis to judge competency will now have a simple one: Does my doctor have a license to practice medicine?
Licensure: Con
There are at least three questions to be considered with respect to medical licensure. 1. If the training mandated by the licensing authorities is really better (produces doctors who are able to get better results) than that of those persons who would not qualify for a license, why won't the market for medical services select in favor of the better training? People don't have to be car experts to buy cars, because companies who make bad cars go out of business. Is the license really any sort of guarantee of quality? 2. Who do these licensure restrictions really benefit, the consumers or the licensed doctors? Isn't licensing really a device to limit entry and therefore competition, and allow high prices to continue? 3. In the long run, isn't the effect of licensure to drive up the price and deny any care to those who can't afford the high price of licensed doctors, and are prevented from obtaining care from anyone else (at least legally)?
If the purpose of licensing is to provide information, is it really effective? Why not just make the information itself available? Require doctors to provide certain sorts of information to patients-information such as: college grades, medical school grades, success rates for various procedures, references, medical philosophy, and fees. Then let people decide.

Should All Professionals Be Licensed? or Only Some? Discuss the Argument

Definitions: