Its only purpose is to increase union membership, by making it easier for workers who want unions to win these votes. If you think the days of On The Waterfront are over, I need only point you to the tactics employed by unions in fire districts around the St. Louis area. You can find that information here and here.

Thanks to Combest for the original link, and to South County Truth Spot for the work they do covering the field in South St. Louis County.

The post Great Op-Ed in the Post About Unions and the Secret Ballot appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Missouri is one of 10 states that prohibit midwives without medical or nursing degrees from assisting with prenatal care. Last year, a late addition to Missouri’s historic HB 818 health reform bill legalized the practice of midwifery for those who obtained a “tocological certification” from a private accreditation group specializing in pregnancy-related services.

The provision was a source of controversy and led to the removal of Senator John Loudon, who had sponsored the midwife provision, from his position as chairman of the Senate Small Business, Insurance, and Industrial Relations Committee.

Senator Loudon is now being restored to his prior leadership position, under the condition that he work to repeal HB 818’s midwife provision. This is an unfortunate twist in the saga. Many Missouri mothers are better off using midwives than traditional hospital care. And, as was pointed out in our op-ed on the subject, it’s already legal for anybody to help deliver a baby in Missouri. It’s only when money is involved that it becomes a problem.

Anyway, read our our op-ed on the topic. It says it better than I can.

The post Midwifery Revisited appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Although I didn’t report it on this blog at the time, I was happy to see that advocates of midwifery filed an appeal with the Missouri Supreme Court late last month, asking for the midwife provision of HB 818 to be reinstated:

Sen. John Loudon, R-Chesterfield, who added the midwifery provision to the bill, defended his inclusion of the provision.

“Health insurance is about access to health care, nothing else. And allowing the public access to additional providers fits right in (to health insurance issues). I thought it was a perfect fit,” he said when reached by phone Friday afternoon.

“I think it’s crazy that we’re the only place in the world that makes (midwifery) a felony,” Loudon said. “We should be giving pregnant women every comfort and option they desire, rather than let the doctors and the politicians dictate their options.”

Whether the appeal effort succeeds or not, there’s no question that midwives should be allowed to practice if expectant mothers prefer to use their services. Statistics show that midwives are a safe option for most women, it’s true, but even more than that, it’s an issue of personal freedom and choice. As I wrote in my op-ed:

One fact that’s often overlooked in the debate about the safety of midwifery is that it’s already legal for just about anybody to deliver a baby in Missouri. You can have your neighbor or your mail carrier or your pizza guy deliver your baby without legal repercussion. It’s only when you seek out someone with relevant experience and pay her to perform a delivery that it becomes against the law. Any system that penalizes training and competency just because money is involved needs to be altered.

The post Midwifery in Missouri Continues to Attract Attention appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The Senate tucked the midwifery provision into the health insurance bill in May. Few legislators knew the bill contained the amendment because of the way it was characterized. The sponsor, Sen. John Loudon, R-Chesterfield, used an obscure Greek term, “tocology,” to refer to midwifery. […]

“The midwife provision does not relate to health insurance,” Joyce wrote in her 19-page ruling.

She said that because legislators didn’t amend the bill’s title, “legislators were not on notice that a new subject, the practice of unregulated midwifery, had been added” to the bill.

I would be sad about this because I’m in favor of allowing midwifery. But I’m the kind of person who looks for silver linings in clouds, at least in legal battles. This must be great advertising for the midwives. And now everyone paying any attention to the news in Missouri knows the meaning of the word “tocology.” However effective that trick was this legislative session, no legislator will be able to claim ignorance of the word in the future!

The post More on the Midwives – I Mean, the Tocologists appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

A long-awaited free-market step on the path to cover those without health insurance came out of Jefferson City on Friday. Gov. Matt Blunt signed HB 818, making Missouri the first state to permit pretax contributions from small business owners to their employees’ individually selected policies. Unlike other health care reform “solutions” that require more government intervention and bureaucracy?third-party or one-payer systems, employer mandates, tax hikes, and cost shifting?this law offers a common sense approach to health care reform.

The media has focused on a controversial midwife provision that was inserted into the bill at the last minute. But the real news here is the bill’s revolutionary approach to health insurance reform — and the fact that the bill won such overwhelming bipartisan support in both chambers of the Legislature. There’s a lot to be excited about in HB 818, so here’s a primer you won’t find in the press.

Every newspaper article I’ve seen about Friday’s HB 818 signing frames it in terms of the midwife provision. It’s easy to focus on that because the fact that Sen. John Loudon managed to sneak the measure into the larger bill without anybody noticing is simply interesting. It’s a juicy story of political controversy and legislative dysfunction that illustrates several public choice insights. And besides, legalizing the practice of midwifery is also a great idea, as Sarah Brodsky has reminded us in this blog. At heart, it’s as much an issue of economic freedom and consumer choice as any other occupational licensure restriction.

But HB 818 is exciting for many other reasons. The health care crisis of today is largely a government-created problem, stemming from state licensure and financing of the medical profession, and from World War II-era wage freezes and price controls that gave employers an incentive to provide health insurance benefits instead of paying higher wages. This ultimately led to employer-based benefits becoming cemented as the norm for insurance coverage in the United States, a system that leaves out a tremendous number of people.

When government officials see problems they themselves created, their usual response is ever-spiraling regulation. More top-down control. Instead, the insurance bill signed into law on Friday takes a significant step in the right direction — allowing more individual choice and decentralized control.

Read more in Beverly Gossage’s primer on HB 818 and her Friday op-ed about why it’s so important.

The post Missouri Revolutionizes Health Insurance appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Just one day after being chastised for sneaking a midwife measure through the Legislature, Sen. John Loudon secured a peculiar victory in the Senate on Tuesday, winning Senate support for yet another midwife provision.

Through an odd turn of events, the Senate voted 23-13 to adopt a measure that would give midwives with no formal medical training the right to practice if they met certain standards.

Regulations of midwives aren’t the only licensing requirements that are too restrictive:

The latest midwife measure is now contained in a massive 214-page bill dealing with the licensing standards for a host of professions.

I hope licensed geologists and interior decorators will have their onerous licensing requirements reformed next.

The post The Midwife Legislation Strikes Back appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

At press time this afternoon, there isn’t much to report from the lay midwifery front. Senate Bill 303, which would legalize the practice, did not come up this week for the final Senate vote it needs before it can advance to the House.

However, late this afternoon, while the Senate was hotly debating a pivotal piece of legislation to name the crawfish as the official state invertebrate, Senator John Loudon, the author of the midwifery bill, offered this substitute version: “The Missouri Medical Society shall be known as the official invertebrate of the state of Missouri due to their unwillingness to compete with a bunch of midwives.” (We couldn’t make this up.)

Regrettably, Senator Loudon withdrew the amendment before the Senate could approve it. Even though he didn’t quite have our name right, we were this close to forever being a question on grade school civics tests in classrooms across the state. Rats!

Of course, we at the Show-Me Institute would never stoop to this kind of name-calling, but I have to admit that it made me chuckle.

The post State Invertebrate appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

On Tuesday, the Senate relented, thanks to a hasty vote that caught opponents off guard.

Last week, those same opponents all but killed the midwife bill, tying up the Senate floor for hours to prevent a vote.

This time around, opponents weren’t even in the Senate chamber when Sen. John Loudon, R-Chesterfield, rushed in to bring the bill to a vote. With no debate, the bill was approved by a voice vote[…]

Sen. Chuck Graham, D-Columbia, said he will once again tie up the Senate floor if the midwife bill comes up for a final vote.

On the subject of occupational licensure, there are many professions besides midwifery that could use less restrictive licenses. Does anybody really think the licensing requirements for "nail technicians" (i.e. manicurists) have a major effect on public health and safety? Here you can find licensed geologists, speech pathologists, martial arts judges, interior designers, and marital therapists. I can’t imagine what you have to do to pass those exams.

The post Midwife Legislation, Continued appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

A bill sponsored by Sen. John Loudon, R-Chesterfield, would allow anybody to perform home births as long as they’re accredited through the North American Registry of Midwives, a private agency out of Georgia.

But after a filibuster by Sen. Chuck Graham, D-Columbia, and Sen. Yvonne Wilson, D-Kansas City, neared a fourth hour, Loudon withdrew the bill from debate.

The current requirements placed on midwives keep people out of the business, which allows the remaining midwives to charge more for their services.

It’s funny that another kind of occupational licensure has helped make midwives so popular. Milton Friedman explains in Capitalism and Freedom that licensing medical doctors drives up the cost of traditional health care. That encourages people to turn to midwives, chiropractors, alternative healers, and others who don’t have traditional medical licenses.

If people think hiring a midwife is too risky, the best course of action is not to impose lots of licensing requirements on midwives. Instead, we should try to lighten the regulations on traditional doctors so they’ll be a more affordable option for patients.

The post More on Midwives appeared first on Show-Me Institute.