Michigan Governor Rick Snyder has issued two executive orders leading to the restructuring of healthcare regulation and other state regulatory activities within the state. Executive Order 2011-4 creates the Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs, (and replaces the Department of Energy, Labor, and Economic Growth), while Executive Order 2011-5 establishes the Office of Regulatory Reinvention.
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New Hampshire House Bill 446 would repeal the regulation of barbering, cosmetology, esthetics, tanning facilities, landscape architecture, court reporting, athletic training, recreation therapy, family mediation, hunting/fishing guides, massage therapists, hawkers, peddlers and others in the state. The bill is currently under consideration by the Executive Departments and Administration Committee from which it is due to emerge next month.
Texas Governor Rick Perry expects to realize $7 million in savings by combining nine health-based regulatory boards into a newly-created Health Professions Agency. The proposal included in the governor's budget, would affect the medical, dental, nursing, chiropractic, podiatric, optometry, pharmacy, psychologist, and physical and occupational therapist regulatory boards.
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Missouri House Bill 136, permitting the spouse of an active member of the military to receive a temporary license in the state, was unanimously approved in committee and now heads to the House floor for full debate. The bill would allow a nonresident military spouse, who possesses a valid license in another state, a temporary license of 180 days, with an opportunity for renewal, pending the successful completion of all appropriate background checks.
Herbal medicine practitioners will be regulated in the United Kingdom from April 2012, under plans announced in the command Paper Enabling Excellence: Autonomy and Accountability for Healthcare Workers, Social Workers, and Social Care Workers. The regulatory authority will be the Health Professions Council (HPC). While the decision has been welcomed by herbal medicine practitioners, others have expressed concern that it provides legitimacy for the use of products and treatments whose efficacy is unproven.
Enabling Excellence: Autonomy and Accountability for Healthcare Workers, Social Workers, and Social Care Workers, presented to the United Kingdom (U.K.) Parliament on February 16, outlines the government's plans for reform of the regulation of healthcare workers across the U.K. and social workers in England. The report proposes the following: devolved power for occupational regulators; moves to limit the growth and costs of the regulatory system; a system of assured voluntary registration; and a simplification of the regulatory structure.
A recent article in the Wall Street Journal suggests that occupational licensing results in a minimum of $116 billion in additional costs of goods and services in the U.S. economy, an amount equivalent to one per cent of all consumer spending. The article highlights the growth in occupational regulation in the United States, which has increased from affecting five per cent of the U.S. workforce in 1950 to 23 per cent in 2008.
Montana's 2004 law legalizing the use of medical marijuana is under threat after the House Human Services Committee voted for its repeal. The repeal bill now heads to the floor of the full House for debate. At the end of 2010 over 27,000 Montanans had been authorized to use medical marijuana, up from 20,000 a year earlier.
A separate bill, Senate Bill 154, is also set for consideration, which would establish the regulation of medical marijuana businesses.
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A parliamentary committee in the United Kingdom has urged the country's medical regulator, the General Medical Council, to introduce a revalidation process for doctors by late 2012. The committee's report notes that such a scheme was first mooted a decade ago and that under the current system doctors need not undergo a formal check of their competence, due to flaws in the system of appraisals. The report also makes clear that one of the purposes of revalidation is "to identify inadequate and potentially dangerous doctors" which "must not be overlooked or diminished in the general move to use revalidation to eliminate unsatisfactory practice and improve overall performance." It also "finds it unsatisfactory that so little attention has been given to the issue of how to deal with doctors whose practice gives cause for concern."
"Battles Among Licensed Occupations: Analyzing Government Regulations on Labor Market Outcomes for Dentists and Hygienists" by Morris M. Kleiner and Kyoung Won Park; National Bureau of Economic Research working paper
In this paper we examine two occupations—dentists and dental hygienists—that are both
universally licensed and provide complementary services to patients, but which are also
substitutes for certain tasks as service providers. However, for key services the states determine who can do the work, the market structure, and what is required for the patient. We examine the labor market implications of these governmental requirements. With the growth in the number of individuals who are regulated or seeking regulation by the states, our case study can illuminate the potential economic issues of the increased regulation of occupations in the U.S. labor market, especially where the work of the regulated occupations overlaps. It also gives an illustration of the kinds of issues that arise as more occupations become regulated and turf battles arise over who is legally allowed to do work for pay.
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