Voice For Liberty

Tag: Regulation

  • In Kansas, doctors may “learn” just by doing their jobs

    In Kansas, doctors may “learn” just by doing their jobs

    A proposed bill in Kansas should make us question the rationale of continuing medical education requirements for physicians.

    The bill is HB 2615, titled “Charitable healthcare providers; continuing education credits for gratuitous care of eligible patients.”

    The bill’s supplemental note explains the bill “… would allow charitable healthcare providers and dentists to fulfill one hour of continuing education credit for performance of two hours of gratuitous service to medically indigent persons.”

    In an op-ed published in the Wichita Eagle Representative Dan Hawkins explained “we believe that this system has the potential of generating more than $18 million in free care for the neediest Kansans.” (Rep. Dan Hawkins: Plan increases access to health care, reduces cost, March 7, 2016)

    Contrary to Hawkins, the care won’t be free. It may not cost the state anything, but it will have a cost to the doctors who supply the “free” care.

    Perhaps more importantly, this bill should make us question the purpose of continuing medical education requirements for physicians and dentists. In Kansas, physicians must participate in 50 hours of continuing medical education annually. This education requirement is satisfied by participating in “activity designed to maintain, develop, or increase the knowledge, skills, and professional performance of persons licensed to practice a branch of the healing arts.”

    But HB 2615 will let physicians satisfy 20 hours of this requirement by providing 40 hours of health care to needy people. Having doctors perform routine medical care — doing their daily job, in other words — doesn’t seem likely to advance the “knowledge, skills, and professional performance” of doctors, which is the stated goal of the regulation.

    We have, therefore, a regulation that seems reasonable — ensuring that doctors are up-to-date in professional knowledge — instead being used by the state to “encourage” doctors to provide free labor.

    Episodes like this should be a lesson in the powers and abuses of the regulatory state.

    The Kansas regulations

    According to the Kansas Board of Healing Arts, physicians must participate in continuing medical education each year, earning “50 hours with a minimum of 20 hours of Category I and a maximum of 30 hours of Category II.”

    In more detail, the regulations state the continuing education is “activity designed to maintain, develop, or increase the knowledge, skills, and professional performance of persons licensed to practice a branch of the healing arts.” 1 Category I continuing education is “presented by a person qualified by practical or academic experience” and may consist of lectures, panel discussions, workshops, seminars, symposiums, and other formal learning opportunities. 2 The requirements are 20 hours of this education annually.

    Category II continuing education comprises activities that are less formal, such as “clinical consultations with other healing arts practitioners that contribute to a practitioner’s education, participation in activities to review the quality of patient care, instructing healing arts and other health care practitioners, patient-centered discussions with other health care practitioners, participating in journal clubs, using searchable electronic databases in connection with patient care activities. and
    using self-instructional materials.” 3 The requirements are 30 hours of this education annually.

    Of note, HB 2615 doesn’t seem to specify into which category will fall the hours of continuing medical education earned by providing service to needy patients.

    —
    Notes

    1. K.A.R. 100-15. (2016). Ksbha.org. Available at: http://www.ksbha.org/regulations/article15.shtml#kar100154. ↩
    2. ibid. ↩
    3. ibid. ↩
  • WichitaLiberty.TV: The caucus and the presidency, Wichita prepares a new regulatory regime

    WichitaLiberty.TV: The caucus and the presidency, Wichita prepares a new regulatory regime

    In this episode of WichitaLiberty.TV: Looking back at the Kansas presidential caucus and should it matter who becomes president. A new regulatory regime in Wichita probably won’t help its stated purpose, but will be harmful. Then, more about regulation. View below, or click here to view at YouTube. Episode 113, broadcast March 13, 2016.

  • Wichita to impose burdensome occupational requirements

    Wichita to impose burdensome occupational requirements

    The proposed massage therapist regulations in Wichita are likely to be ineffective, but will limit economic opportunity and harm consumers.

    Kansas occupational license requirements, with proposed Wichita massage therapists. Click for larger.
    Kansas occupational license requirements, with proposed Wichita massage therapists. Click for larger.
    The Wichita City Council is concerned about human trafficking for the purposes of prostitution. That’s good. But the response the council is considering — which is licensing massage therapists — is not needed. We have strict laws already on the books that make human trafficking a serious criminal offense, which it is. The proposed Wichita regulations will simply make it more difficult for honest people to become massage therapists. Criminals will operate illegally. They are criminals, after all. Or, they will easily obtain false credentials.

    Kansas already has many burdensome occupational licensure requirements that limit economic opportunity and protect entrenched interests. Nearby is a chart of the number of days training or experience required to obtain a license if various fields, according to Institute for Justice in 2012. 1 I’ve added the proposed Wichita massage therapist requirements. As you can see, it will require more than twice as much education to become a massage therapist as is required to become an emergency medical technician. How does that make sense?

    Comparing the proposed Wichita requirements to the nation, we find that the Wichita standard is quite lax. 39 states license massage therapists, with the average education or training requirement being 139 days, with the range being from 117 days to 327 days2. Wichita is proposing 83 days, which might inspire one to ask this question: If the Wichita City Council is truly concerned about protecting Wichitans from getting a bad massage, why is it proposing such minimal requirements, compared to other states?

    In reality, the high barriers to becoming a massage therapist in many states is testimony to the massage industry’s success in erecting barriers to entry. By making it difficult to become a massage therapist, the supply is lower than it could be, and prices are higher. Consumers lose.

    As has been observed by myself: “City officials note that the existing local massage industry requested this regulation. That’s not surprising. The purpose of nearly all occupational licensure laws is to restrict entry to the industry so that existing practitioners can charge higher rates. That is a scam, especially against low-income people that need a masseuse or a plumber. It is also a burden to people who want to become plumbers, barbers, massage therapists, or one of the many other licensed occupations.” 3

    —
    Notes

    1. Institute for Justice, (2012). License to Work. Available at: ij.org/report/license-to-work/ Accessed 29 Feb. 2016. ↩
    2. ibid ↩
    3. Weeks, B. (2016). Massage business regulations likely to be ineffective, but will be onerous. Voice For Liberty in Wichita. Available at: wichitaliberty.org/wichita-government/massage-business-regulations-likely-ineffective-but-will-be-onerous/ . ↩
  • WichitaLiberty.TV: Heritage Foundation’s Bryan Riley on free trade

    WichitaLiberty.TV: Heritage Foundation’s Bryan Riley on free trade

    In this episode of WichitaLiberty.TV: Foreign trade is an important issue in this year’s presidential campaign. Heritage Foundation economist and Senior Policy Analyst Bryan Riley explains concepts that voters can use in making an informed decision. View below, or click here to view at YouTube. Episode 111, broadcast February 28, 2016.

    Shownotes

  • Massage business regulations likely to be ineffective, but will be onerous

    Massage business regulations likely to be ineffective, but will be onerous

    The Wichita City Council is likely to create a new regulatory regime for massage businesses in response to a problem that is already addressed by strict laws.

    During a presentation to the Wichita City Council on February 23, 2016, police officials reported on a number of investigations and arrests. In 2015, there were 22 arrests for human trafficking and other violations. The presentation did not include what comprised “other violations,” nor did it contain any information about the disposition of these cases.

    If the city is concerned about prostitution and child trafficking, the latter being a serious crime, we already have strong laws concerning this. As far as the two crimes being related: If you are a prostitute or promoter of such, you are already a criminal, according to the law. Committing more crimes, therefore, is just another step down the path you’ve already chosen.

    A solution is to bring prostitution out of the shadows. Stop making consensual behavior between adults a crime. Then police can focus on actual and serious crime, like child trafficking.

    But the zeal of the Wichita City Council for creating new regulatory regime is likely to overwhelm any rational thought about the problem. Now Wichita massage business owners and therapists are likely to be saddled with onerous licensing requirements. To become a newly-licensed therapist, you must possess one of several educational credentials, one of which is 500 hours of training. Existing therapists must meet similar requirements.

    City officials note that the existing local massage industry requested this regulation. That’s not surprising. The purpose of nearly all occupational licensure laws is to restrict entry to the industry so that existing practitioners can charge higher rates. That is a scam, especially against low-income people that need a masseuse or a plumber. It is also a burden to people who want to become plumbers, barbers, massage therapists, or one of the many other licensed occupations.

    It is both shocking and disappointing to realize that Wichita city bureaucrats and council members do not realize these economic realities. Another economic reality is that when licensing requirements are strict, the quality of service that many people receive declines. Investigating the demand for licensed plumbers, researchers found this:1

    This proxy assumes that the more stringent are the barriers the higher will be the cost of licensed service and the smaller will be its quantity. These two effects increase the motivation of consumers to substitute their own services for those of trained professionals. This substitution process should show up in rising retail sales of plumbing supplies in more tightly restrictive states since licensed plumbers will generally purchase supplies wholesale. The implicit assumption is this causal chain is that self-service is on the average of lower quality than could be obtained from even a marginally trained journeyman plumber.

    When presented with a convincing but fake credential, how diligently with Wichita officials investigate?
    When presented with a convincing but fake credential, how diligently with Wichita officials investigate?
    In other words, when strict licensure requirements make plumbers expensive, more people do their plumbing work themselves, and this work is likely to be of lower quality. It’s quite a stretch (literally and figuratively) to apply this reasoning to do-it-yourself massage, but here’s another economic reality: The more difficult it is to achieve a credential, the greater incentive to cheat. You don’t have to search very far before you find vendors advertising their services like this:

    We are one of the oldest and most trusted seller of fake diplomas on the web. We use real diploma paper, the same paper that most major universities and high schools use. We also use professional security paper for our fake transcripts. We have more than 12 years experience in printing fake diplomas. You can rest assured that your fake diploma or fake transcript will look very authentic. We offer many different types of fake diplomas and fake certificates such as, FAKE GEDs, fake college diploma, fake university degree, fake high school diploma, fake college degree, or fake high school transcripts and fake skill certificate.

    How diligently will Wichita’s bureaucratic machinery investigate when presented with a fake diploma certificate and transcript? The city’s record is not good. After the city passed new taxicab regulations, somehow the regulation that prohibited convicted sex offenders from receiving licenses was not implemented effectively. The city granted a taxi driver license to a man who was on the state sex offender registry. He raped a passenger.

    I urge the city council to reject these regulations and devote the city’s resources to protecting people from actual crime.

    —
    Notes

    1. Carroll, Sidney L., and Robert J. Gaston. “Occupational Restrictions and the Quality of Service Received: Some Evidence”. Southern Economic Journal 47.4 (1981): 959–976. ↩
  • Property rights in Wichita: Your roof

    Property rights in Wichita: Your roof

    The Wichita City Council will attempt to settle a dispute concerning whether a new roof should be allowed to have a vertical appearance rather than the horizontal appearance of the old.

    1500 N. Park Place in Wichita, August 2015. From Google Maps. Click for larger version.
    1500 N. Park Place in Wichita, August 2015. From Google Maps. Click for larger version.
    Tomorrow the Wichita City Council will be asked to uphold a decision of the Historic Preservation Board (HPB) regarding the characteristics of a roof someone installed on their house. Here’s material from the agenda packet for the meeting:

    Analysis: By a 4-0-1 vote, the HPB found the installation of the metal panel roof does encroach upon, damage and destroy the Park Place Fairview Historic District by installing a non-traditional roofing material and altering the horizontal pattern of the roof shingles which is a character-defining feature of the house. Secretary of the Interior’s Standards #2 and #3 specifically deal with the character of the building itself. There is no evidence in historic Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps, historic aerial photographs of the property, or historic building permit records that 1500 North Park Place ever had a metal panel or standing seam metal roof. There is no evidence of the property’s roof structure that this house ever had anything other than cedar shingles or composite singles. The issue is not with the metal material, it is with the metal sheet which gives a vertical appearance given to a roof that had a horizontal appearance. The design guidelines adopted by City Council for this historic district do not mention metal panel roofing material as appropriate material for this district (Section 2.12.1021.1 of the Wichita Code of Ordinances). The applicant did not provide an option to use metal shingles that would have the same appearance as the existing shingle roof.

    Since the property is a contributing structure in the WRHP, the RHKP and the NRHP, the metal panel roof cannot proceed without the City Council finding that there are not any “feasible and prudent alternatives” to the metal panel roofing material. (Emphasis added.)

  • WichitaLiberty.TV: Wichita’s regulations and economic development

    WichitaLiberty.TV: Wichita’s regulations and economic development

    In this episode of WichitaLiberty.TV: Do Wichita’s many laws and regulations accomplish their goals? Then, are Wichita’s economic development policies likely to work? Episode 98, broadcast October 18, 2015. View below, or click here to view in high definition at YouTube.

  • Despite growth of sharing economy, Wichita relies on centralization

    Despite growth of sharing economy, Wichita relies on centralization

    The sharing economy provides for the decentralization and privatization of regulation, but the City of Wichita clings to the old ways.

    Letter in Wichita Eagle, excerpt
    Letter in Wichita Eagle, excerpt
    In May the Wichita Eagle printed a letter from a Wichitan describing his recent cab ride from the airport: “I got in the cab to go home, and that turned out to be the most offensive encounter of my trip. The driver was dressed perfectly for slopping hogs. The cab plainly stank. There were spills, trash, crumbs, scuzzy windows, sticky door panels. Ugh.”

    Not having been in a taxicab in Wichita for some years, I was surprised to learn of this person’s experience. There is a law, after all. Section 3.84.140 of the Wichita municipal code provides that “Any vehicle used as a taxicab shall be kept clean, of good appearance … ” Section 3.84.320 mandates that no taxicab driver shall “Fail to maintain their personal appearance by being neat and clean in dress and person.” Also, no driver shall “Fail to keep clothing in good repair, free of rips, tears and stains” or “Operate any taxicab which is not in a clean and/or sanitary condition.”

    These laws were implemented in 2012 as a result of former mayor Carl Brewer’s frustration with the complaints he received regarding Wichita taxicabs. The instinct of politicians and bureaucrats is that if there’s a problem, a new or tougher law can provide the solution. The regulations mentioned above are part of the city’s solution, as are mandatory customer service training classes.

    But as we learn from May of this year, these regulations aren’t working, according to at least one person whose judgment the Wichita Eagle trusted enough to print.

    At the time, the city’s actions in creating tougher regulations had a whiff of plausibility. But right about the time that Wichita implemented new regulations the market for personal rides started to change. That change was the increasing popularity, availability, and refinement of Uber and other similar services. Uber started operations in Wichita in 2014.

    What is different about Uber from regular taxicabs? For one, drivers are rated each time they serve a passenger. (Passengers are rated too, by the drivers.)

    Which form of regulation do you suppose is most effective? Regulation by government, or regulation by consumers? The letter in the Eagle tells of the failure of government regulation. But no one except that passenger likely knows how bad was the experience of riding in that cab. (Well, that passenger and the driver’s others passengers, probably. A cab doesn’t get that grungy in just a day.)

    But a bad Uber trip contributes to a driver’s public reputation. (Bad passengers also develop a reputation that drivers can see.) It’s a powerful system of regulation of each and every time service is provided.

    Further evidence of the failure of laws and regulations — or the city’s application and enforcement of them — is that the letter writer begged the city to pass laws that are already on the books: “Wichita, please enact standards for dress, cleanliness and vehicle condition to protect our reputation. Don’t let the impression of the nation’s best airport be sullied by taxicabs.”

    Decentralize and privatize

    Jeffrey Tucker
    Jeffrey Tucker
    Last week the author Jeffrey Tucker appeared on WichitaLiberty.TV. As we talked about Uber and other services in the sharing economy, I mentioned that this is the decentralization of regulation. Tucker repeated the idea, calling it the privatization of regulation. Both terms apply.

    But Wichita’s 2012 taxicab regulations are still the law. As the Wichita Eagle reports, drivers are being trained by bureaucrats. Cabs are still dirty and drivers slovenly. It seems to me that the Wichita regulations are contrary to how Uber operates, leaving the company operating in the shadows, vulnerable to a clampdown at any time. That is something the city needs to change.

  • WichitaLiberty.TV: Jeffrey Tucker and ‘Bit by Bit: How P2P Is Freeing the World’

    WichitaLiberty.TV: Jeffrey Tucker and ‘Bit by Bit: How P2P Is Freeing the World’

    In this episode of WichitaLiberty.TV: Jeffrey Tucker talks about his most recent book “Bit by Bit: How P2P Is Freeing the World” and how Bitcoin and other distributed technologies are affecting the world. View below, or click here to watch in high definition at YouTube. Episode 97, broadcast October 4, 2015.

    Tucker’s website is www.jeffreytucker.me. The book’s page at Amazon is Bit by Bit: How P2P Is Freeing the World. Liberty.me is here.