unionizing of doctors

[sirrileydog]

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In the unlikely event medicine goes socialized, unions will be absolutely necessary. No other way to deal with a superior who has less education and brain than you and wants to tell you what to do. And no, unions don't just protect your salary. Most of what they do is about benefits, fair work hours, and not letting your superiors act like ass?#$&

Unions already exists but not in name. Other avenues for leverage exist. For example, physician groups can generate leverage with hospitals and plan administrators. For example, anesthesiologists maintain their high wages by banding together in groups of 20 to 100 doctors. In my major metropolitan area, three main groups dominate business. Recently, a group of 20 doctors held out against the CEO of a specific hospital as part of a labor negotiation. They are were free to choose not to work at a specific hospital that needed them; other groups filled in and some elective surgeries were cancelled. So just because physicians aren't unionized doesn't mean that unions don't exist. Additionally, the AMA is a strong politically charged body that protects physicians interests as a top priority (just like a teacher's union prioritizes its teachers first). They limit the number of doctors who are trained, create high barriers of entry, among other strategies. This debate has started under false pretenses.