Doctors used to think that they and their hated adversaries, lawyers, were the only two professions in the world. They tended to forget that journalists are professionals without licenses, that accountants are professionals with licenses. I tell doctors that our negotiating people are professionals. Our top negotiating agents and business representatives have master's degrees. I tell doctors that those people are as professional in what they do as you are.
Unionism is big business now, it is a profession and our negotiating agents are professionals.
If you don't think so, doctor, you negotiate that next contract that you can't handle yourself. Some physicians would rather own HMOs than practice in them. If you want to be a big shareholder, to own an HMO, to be one of the entrepreneurs, then you probably don't want to be one of us. We do have some members who have an ownership interest in an HMO on the one hand and practice medicine on the other. Some people are still going to be interested only in practicing medicine, and those are the people we want.