License defined: permission granted by an authority (as of a government or a business) to do some act or transaction which would be unlawful without such permission.

A 2022 Institute of Justice study identified more than 2,700 licenses across the 50 states and the District of Columbia. A review of occupational licenses found that, for lower and moderate income occupations – hair stylists, massage therapists, preschool teachers – licensing was overly burdensome and irrational. The license benefits providers more than consumers. Since 2016, The Wisconsin Institute for Justice reports:

Onerous occupational licensing laws that force people to undergo thousands of hours of often redundant and gratuitous training to perform jobs like auctioneering, tree trimming, and hair styling. …licensing laws are the result of higher-skilled professionals seeking to protect their market share at the consumers' expense.

The good news since 2017 is states have eliminated more licenses than they have created.

The Medical License Landscape

Between 1875 and 1900, conventional medicine began passing license laws that granted national associations, such as The American Medical Association, (AMA), the right to oversee and regulate the practice of medicine, as well as collect heavy license fees. Government agencies, such as the Food & Drug Administration (FDA), do not apply regulations to treatment regimens or practices, only to products.