State by state variation also provides a useful rebuttal to occupational licensing defenses that appeal to our desire to have quality services. Do you really think of Indiana as a laissez-faire, low quality free-for-all where you can't tell whether your dentist is illiterate and your heart surgeon is a legally blind imbecile who works a night shift at White Castle? No, you don't, and it's likely that if California adopted the much lower licensing regulations of Indiana they wouldn't become one either.
In some cases, we even have a bit of a data on how the highly regulated states compare to the loosely regulated states:
Alabama has perhaps the strictest licensing requirements in the nation: 750 hours of schooling and a written and practical exam. The state gets, on average, four public complaints a year about poor service, according to the Alabama Board of Cosmetology.
Connecticut, which doesn't require manicurists to get licenses, has averaged just six complaints a year to the state over the past five years. Two-thirds of those complaints are about gift certificates that aren't honored, according to data from the consumer protection division of the state attorney general's office.
And the case for the defense?
In Kentucky, the Board of Hairdressers and Cosmetologists has eight full-time inspectors who spend much of their time responding to anonymous tips about unlicensed manicurists. The inspectors rarely catch the alleged offenders, says Charles Lykins, the board's administrator, because "they take off running."
Mr. Lykins says it's in the public's interest to insist manicurists are well-trained. "Have you ever had a nail fungus? It's terrible," he says. "That's why we're there."
This sort of thing should particularly offend liberals, I think, as bad regulations undermine good regulations.
No comments:
Post a Comment