New Cato Study Advocates Eliminating Medical Licensing

Health-care professionals sell medical licensing to Americans as a vital public health safeguard. But could it really be protecting private interest groups at the expense of everyone else?

In the Cato Institute’s newest health policy analysis, Medical Licensing: An Obstacle to Affordable, Quality Care, adjunct scholar Shirley Svorny takes a critical look at the institution of medical licensing in the United States. What she finds is alarming: medical licensing significantly reduces access and does little if anything to improve health-care quality.

Cato Scholar Wins Intelligence Squared Debate

On Tuesday September 16, 2008 Cato Institute director of health policy studies Michael F. Cannon engaged in a public, Oxford-style debate in New York City on the motion “Universal health coverage should be the federal government’s responsibility.” The debate was sponsored by Intelligence Squared.

Alongside Emmy Award-winning ABC News reporter John Stossel and Pacific Research Institute president Sally Pipes, Cannon argued against the motion. Arguing for the motion were New York Times columnist and Princeton economics professor Paul Krugman, Emory Medical School professor Arthur Kellerman, and independent health policy expert Michael Rachlis.

The contest was intense and well-performed by all participants. According to Cannon: “People should have the right to choose their doctor, they should have the right to choose their health plan, and those things are often lost in a system of universal coverage, almost uniformly…You can have a health care sector that guarantees universal coverage, or you can have a health care sector that continuously makes medical care better, cheaper, and safer…You cannot have both.”

The results of pre- and post-debate polling are as follows:

• Before the debate, 49 percent of the audience was pro-universal coverage, 24 percent anti-, and 27 percent undecided.

• After the debate, 58 percent of the audience was pro-, 34 percent anti-, and 8 percent undecided.

Cannon, Stossel, and Pipes won a greater share of the undecided votes, giving the team against the motion an important victory.

To watch, hear, or read the full debate find video at YouTube.com, audio at NPR.org, or a transcript at IntelligenceSquaredUS.org.

Cato Scholars and Research Quoted on Health Reform

Cato scholars and research were recently quoted on health reform in the following media:

• American Spectator (Online): “There is also considerable debate over whether increasing the number of people with insurance is the best way to improve health outcomes. Michael Cannon, director of health policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, said, ‘There is no evidence that health insurance will deliver better outcomes than spending money on other things.’”

• National Review (Online): “Around the world, single-payer systems keep costs down by rationing care. A Cato Institute study found that…Norwegians commonly travel abroad to avoid long waits. ‘Approximately 280,000 Norwegians are estimated to be waiting for care on any given day…’”

• MedPageToday.com: "‘People believe that they don't need to buy long-term care insurance because Medicaid will bail them out,’ said Michael Tanner, a senior fellow at the CATO Institute…Tanner said the middle class should go out and buy long-term care insurance and leave government aid to those who truly need it.”

• American Medical News: “Steady increases in insurance premiums are leading more employers to stop covering workers…These increases are driven partly by people using more health care than they otherwise would if they controlled the money spent on it, [the Cato Institute’s Michael Cannon] said.”

• AISHealth.com: “In the current issue of the online journal Forum for Health Economics & Policy, Cannon describes how his proposal for ‘large health savings accounts’ would overcome the shortcomings of current account-based CDH and create tax neutrality for health care…”

For more Cato research on international health systems, rising insurance premiums, Large HSAs, and long-term care see

• Michael D. Tanner, “The Grass Is Not Always Greener: A Look at National Health Care Systems Around The World,” Cato Institute Policy Analysis no. 613, March 18, 2008;

• Michael F. Cannon, “Fix Health Care By Making Americans Care About Costs,” USAToday, September 7, 2007;

• Michael F. Cannon, “Large Health Savings Accounts: A Step Toward Tax Neutrality for Health Care,” Forum for Health Economics & Policy, Vol. 11, No. 2; and

• Stephen A. Moses, “Aging America’s Achilles’ Heel: Medicaid Long-Term Care, Cato Institute Policy Analysis no. 549, September 1, 2005.