The Worldwide Epidemics of Doctor's Strikes
by Robert W. Tracinski

Excerpt:

"...In the doctors' strikes across the world, there is one factor that is
omnipresent: government controls. All of the overseas doctors are striking
against socialized medical systems in which doctors' fees and work procedures
are set, in minute detail, by the government. When the government is short on
money or wants more services, its first step is always to squeeze the doctors --
restricting their fees, regulating their services or just plain refusing to pay
them. The doctors are left with only one recourse: to go on strike.

.... The principle behind socialized medicine is stated by a Croatian government
official who condemned the doctors' strike in his country: "To strike is
everyone's constitutional right, but the people's right to health and a regular
health service is even greater." Under socialized medicine, the doctors are
always presumed to have no rights, while all comers are presumed to have a
"right" to the doctors' unrewarded services. This transformation of doctors into
servants of the state -- whose only bargaining tool is the mass withholding of
their services -- is the cause of the rash of doctors' strikes.

...... The immediate complaint in America stems from this same hostility to the
rights of doctors -- in this case, our government's refusal to protect them from
arbitrary medical malpractice awards that amount to legalized looting. And now,
both Congress and the Bush administration want to expand Medicare, which has
been the leading edge of socialized medicine in America, imposing the kind of
controls on doctors' fees and regulation of their practices that is endemic in
the rest of the world."

Full article:

http://capmag.com/article.asp?ID=2487