From the cited article: "Since the early 1900s, medical special interests have been lobbying politicians to reduce competition."
To be fair, every profession does this. Plumbers, electricians, building contractors, doctors and many others advocated to have their trades licensed so the public would be protected, while it also restricts suppl and reduces competition. Notice the OOIDA-drive underway right now to increase, through regulation, the driver-training requirement for a new CDL.
In the fitness business, personal training is a relatively new profession as gyms themselves have now risen to saturate the country. Not long ago, there were only a handful of gyms in the US. Now they are everywhere. Personal training is part of the larger fitness trend. Trainers have formed certification organizations to brand themselves and distinguish themselves from "amateurs."
As with most other professions, it will only be a matter of time before trainers band together and convince Washington that the trade needs to be licensed. That will protect trainers from the less-qualified people who are out there undermining the profession (as the professionals see it), and it will increase the pricing power trainers have. The trainers will win the Washington debate because the independent amateurs will not band together in sufficient numbers and influence to fight the proposal.The organized professionals will hire a lobbyist to get this done.
In another fitness business subcategory, Diane and I were personally affected by the reduced-competition phenomenon the article describes. When we entered the business, it was legal for gyms and tanning salons to offer red-light therapy for skin rejuvenation. It is similar to a tanning bed, only with a certain type of red lamps. Unlike tanning, this therapy was safe and effective, and it was also offered by medical providers.
Now, because the medical lobby was successful in Washington, it is illegal for gyms and tanning salons to offer this service unless a medical professional is on site to administer it. Nothing changed in the therapy itself and the medical professional does nothing that was not previously done. The person gets under the lamps for a while and that's that. To my knowledge there has never been a single case where an injury or other adverse result came out o this therapy. But with the new regulation, the practical effect is to limit this service to the medical clinics that now provide it at ten times the price or more. The price skyrocketed because competition was reduced, exactly as the article describes.
This goes to the points I raised above. Red-light skin rejuvenation is a specific service about which the too-much/too-little regulation questions can be asked. In my opinion, consumers would be better served by less regulation. The more this safe treatment is made available, the cheaper and more convenient it will be, and the better citizens will be served. But if your gut instinct is to use this example to argue all regulations should be repealed, you effectively license every home-basement meth factory to expand its product line to become a legal supplier of pharmaceuticals of all kinds.
The problem is not the regulations. The problem is the system in which the regulations are created is corrupt. This is not about the rules. It's about the moral condition of the people who serve in public office, and the people who elect them. Voters are corrupt too. They routinely place their individual interests ahead of the public good.
