Message to Future Doctors: You Matter

Tonight I’m speaking at a panel event for medical students at Georgetown University. Titled “The ACA and the Evolution of Our Health Care System,” the event will explore how Obamacare impacts doctors. The event is organized by the American Medical Association’s chapter on campus.

I’m looking forward to the event. Doctors are, as Ayn Rand identified, the “forgotten [men and women] of socialized medicine.” The assumption in Obamacare and health care debates more broadly today is that the government has the right to control a doctor’s time, efforts and income for its own purposes. As Ayn Rand put it: “That a doctor should have any right, desire or choice in the matter is regarded as irrelevant selfishness.”

My message tonight to future doctors: your interests, desires and rights are of the utmost importance.