Whenever the Clintons extol the virtues of socialized medicine, they point to the European model. The truth is that President and Mrs. Clinton and their statist friends hate everything that the American revolutionaries and their 19th-century successors believed in. The idea that an individual should be free to manage his own life is anathema to the present-day American public official. But they know that, in the final analysis, they need the support of their subjects to continue and expand their control. And, unfortunately, public-school teachers have done their job well.
Free enterprise means to engage in enterprise freely.
If a person must receive the permission of the political authorities to engage in an enterprise, then the enterprise is not free. Licensing of physicians came into existence in the U.S. at the beginning of the 20th century. It is a device to limit the supply of doctors, to protect them from competition, and to increase their income levels. It is a throwback to the old European guild system that Americans in 1776 found so revolting. Here, the political process is used to steal money from some individuals in order to give the loot to others.