PeeterJoot

In Ontario, there's been some recent fuss in the media about some Doctor's applying for an explicit right to discriminate, reminiscent of the recent Indiana discrimination legislation. This article outlines some of the typical popular sentiment about this application. My partner takes the position that doctor's should not be allowed to discriminate. I argued the other case, and suggested that people can just switch doctors and the discriminatory doctor will have financial pressure to change their policies. My argument seemed weak for a number of reasons: - There is so much legislation in place in Ontario relating to health care that switching a family doctor is non-trivial. - There is no free market for specialists, and you don't have the flexibility to switch or choose. A specialist is assigned by the "family" (or walk-in) doctor who gets a (Government paid) fee for providing the referral service. You are not allowed to see specialists directly, even if it's obvious that it's appropriate to do so. The wait time for seeing a specialist is usually in the order of many months, so the cost of looking elsewhere if you don't like the service you receive is high. - There may not be other alternatives in Rural areas, so if you don't like the geographical proximate doctor, you may be stuck with their services. I am curious, given the anti-free market constraints that are undeniably in place in Ontario in the medical industry, what position other libertarian biased people would take in this argument, and how others would argue against the weaknesses in my argument against more legislation.