A free-trade deal for foreign docs?

Re “Who got spared the wrath of free trade?” Opinion, Nov. 27

If Dean Baker wishes to reduce professional income inequality and also protect the American healthcare consumer, he should rethink his version of unfettered free trade for the American medical profession.

The vast majority of U.S. doctors are general practitioners and family physicians, averaging salaries of $137,000 and $167,000 respectively, not the $250,000 he cites for all doctors. These dedicated physicians are allowed to enter practice only after completing at least nine competitive years of higher education, including an American residency, often paying off medical school debt in excess of $100,000.

Flooding the U.S. medical market with foreign doctors who have not participated in American residency training is a fraught concept, successful only in disadvantaging those doctors with the best education and training. William G. Preston, MD

Laguna Hills

Baker exhibits the kind of thinking and focus on detail that should come from elected officials.

When jobs are involved, lines can be drawn in different ways to highlight local winners and losers. Many states refuse to recognize other states’ professional licenses for doctors, lawyers and other workers. Arguments suggesting that a lack of state reciprocity is the way to control quality of care are a sick joke; it only benefits the few professionals.

We might all make better decisions if we recognized the obvious answers to these questions: Is what’s good for my immediate family always good for me? Is what’s good for my neighbors always good for me and my immediate family? What about about my country and even the world? I’d answer no to all these questions.

Still, I vote for leaders who scrupulously avoid conflicts of interest, make less reactionary and more strategic decisions and do more to help the disadvantaged, both domestically and internationally. Ron Paulinski

Ventura