Boutique Medical Practices--Yes!
Jan 28, 2002 

      MARINA DEL REY, CA--"The outcry against 'boutique medical practices'--where doctors charge a flat yearly fee in return for services superior to those offered by government-controlled health care--is outrageous and immoral," said Dr. Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute.

      Critics charge that these doctors, by taking fewer patients, will create further shortages of doctors. "But the responsibility for shortages," said Dr. Brook, "lies with government price-controls and regulations that have made being a doctor unrewarding and unprofitable. If shortages of doctors were their real concern, the critics would demand that the government get out of health care entirely--and let the free market produce a flood of affordable, competent doctors."

      "The critics' real concern stems from their egalitarianism," continued Dr. Brook. "They object to what they call 'two-class' medicine. They think that everyone, regardless of their personal wealth, should have the same level of health care. The only way to achieve this unjust 'ideal' is to pull down the wealthy by force--to make the doctors' superior services and the patients' voluntary purchase of them illegal. This is thick-headed communism at its worst."

      "The greatness of America," observed Dr. Brook, "is that it leaves the producers free to produce--and, properly and morally, to reap the rewards. These entrepreneurial doctors, by finding a way to offer their patients--in the face of crippling government controls--same-day appointments, house calls, accompanying patients to specialists, and 24-hour cell-phone access, are raising the level of health care that Americans can purchase. For this they should not be denounced but applauded."

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Dr. Yaron Brook is available for interviews. To interview Dr. Brook or book him for your show, please e-mail media@aynrandcenter.org

For more articles by Yaron Brook, and his bio, click here.