State Regulatory Agencies Are Missing Something

Please bear with me here, just for a few minutes.  During my working years, I spent ten years as an Investigator for the Texas State Board of Medical Examiners.  We, who worked there in the trenches, tried to reassure ourselves that we were there for the people of the State of Texas.  All the people of the State of Texas.  We tacitly knew that the reality of that regulatory Board was that its members were more interested in protecting the licensees, rather than the general public, and we tried our best to live with that.  After all, the Board was controlled by physicians themselves!

And, if you look at all the other myriad State regulatory agencies, you will quickly see that this same situation exists right across the spectrum!  Lawyers control the State Bar.  Dentists control the Dental Board, Plumbers, theirs, and so on.

How can an unlicensed person, who supposedly depends on these people for adequate and proper health care, or adequate legal representation, or even adequate pipes and drains, hope to ever see that whatever laws might apply to the given professions actually be enforced?!  Especially those laws and rules and regulations supposedly designed for the protection of the general public?  It is absurd on the face of it, and in reality, we, the great unlicensed majority, haven't got a prayer, or a leg to stand on!

So, here's a radical idea:  Let's continue with State regulatory agencies, to license and oversee the various professions.  But, let's appoint only regular non-licensed people to sit on the Boards that do the overseeing and enforcement!  Maybe one trusted physician could serve in a strictly advisory role for the State Board of Medical Examiners, and one lawyer for the State Bar, and so forth.  But, let's let the people police the licensees that we all depend on.  After all, the way the system currently works, licenses issued by these various agencies are actually more like licenses to steal!
And, that is not only wrong, but it fails to accomplish what the whole idea of regulation supposedly does!  So, what is missing is that people are lacking any voice.