b'State and national levels. In this way,Suspicious licensing, even in medicine and law as well as wiring and plumbing houses and hair-cutting, would likely go by the wayside. although the pri- Fires and Unfortunately, vate certification proposal has been in the public domain in some form for a decade, it is not currently law in any State. 7Its constituency is widelyExplosionsdispersed. It is often misunderstood as being both more or less powerful and restrictive than it truly is. However, it holds the most promise to bring about true freedom in the realm of health care and beyond, allowing competitive enterprise to confer its massive benefitsTime to become self-on consumers and producers alike.Byron Schlomachis an economist withsXFienW ZiWK Ioodthree decades of experience in analyzing pub-lic policy. He has served as chief economist at the Texas Public Policy Foundation and the Goldwater Institute and was director of the 1889 Institute in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.Endnotes1.Jennifer Block, The Criminalization of the Ameri-can Midwife, longreads.com, March 2020, at https://longreads.com/2020/03/10/criminalization-of-the-ameri-can-midwife/.2.Carpenter D, Knepper L, Sweetland K, et al., License to Work: A National Study of Burdens from Occupational Licensing, Institute for Justice, November 13, 2017, at https://ij.org/report/license-to-work-2/.3.Editorial staff and agencies, Doctors to lose right of self-policing, The Guardian, February 21, 2007, at https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/feb/21/health.publicservices. 4.See many of the cases litigated by the Institute for Jus-tice at https://ij.org/cases/. The Goldwater Institute (www.goldwaterinstitute.org) and others have litigated over li-censing board overreach as well.5.For a discussion of the case and some implications, seeT he Loadstar reported onnewsisveryalarmingforallofus Brent Kendall, Supreme Court Affirms FTC Antitrust Authority Over Licensing Boards, TheWall Street Jour-nal, February 25, 2015, at https://www.wsj.com/articles/supreme-court-affirms-ftc-antitrust-authority-over-licens- February14,2022,thataccustomedtothewell-oiledsupply ing-boards-1424881999. 6.Schlomach B, Sandefur C, Feldstein M, A Win-Win2021 saw the most fac- chain woven into the fabric of Amer-for Consumers and Professionals Alike: An Alternativetory fires ever recorded inican and European economies.to Occupational Licensing, Goldwater Institute and The 1889 Institute, Nov 15, 2018, at https://goldwaterinstitute. a single year. Resilinc [an industryIt has also been reported that North org/article/a-win-win-for-consumers-and-profession- groupthatmonitorssuchdisrup- America experienced the most supply als-alike-an-alternative-to-occupational-licensing/.7. The idea was first proposed in a paper written by thetions]sentout1,946FactoryFirechaindisruptionswith5,417more author, see Byron 6chlomach 3h.D., 6ix 5eforms to Oc- alerts,anincreaseof129%year- than any other developed nation. The cupational Licensing Laws to Increase Jobs and Lower Costs, Goldwater Institute, July 10, 2012, at https:// over-year. The uptick is due mostlysecond was Europe, which saw 2,838, goldwaterinstitute.org\x12wp-content\x12uploads\x12\x15\x131\x17\x1211\x126ix-Reforms-to-Occupational-Licensing-Laws-to-Increase- togapsinregulatoryandprocessfollowed by Asia with 2,128. Nearly a Jobs-and-Lower-Costs.pdf.A version of it was introducedexecutionaswellasashortageofquarter of the supply chain disruptions by an Arizona legislator, but it did not pass out of com-mittee. Another version passed out of an Oklahoma Senateskilledlaborinwarehouses.Thisglobally were attributed to manufactu-committee in 2022, but moved no further.H EALTHF REEDOMN EWS /S UMMER2022 15NHF_Summer40-2_2022_Linda_08-09-2022.indd 15 8/10/22 11:10 AM'