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State Responses Of Dental Examiners

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While state responses to Dental Examiners have been limited, Kansas has many potential responses it could take. These approaches range significantly in how much disruption they may cause to the Kansas board system, and how much liability protection they may provide for boards. There are four main approaches, I will discuss, 1) maintaining the current system, 2) providing for the indemnification of state board members, 3) increasing supervision for state boards, and 4) changing the membership composition of state boards. Maintain the Current System The first possible approach is to not make any changes to state boards and how they are supervised, and instead maintain the current system. There has been some dispute amongst scholars …show more content…

As previously mentioned, actors can only be liable under antitrust law if they engage in unreasonable restrictions of trade. A FTC Commissioner confirmed this principal stating “if a board is not engaging in conduct that is a violation of the antitrust laws, it need not even address the issue of active supervision.” The FTC Commissioner suggested that “simply being more cognizant of, and hopefully minimizing, the competitive effects of a board’s regulatory decisions would go a long way toward eliminating any antitrust exposure.” Part of the reason for this is that antitrust laws are only concerned with regulations that are “unreasonably restrictive of competitive conditions.” This makes sense in the context of Dental Examiners. In Dental Examiners, the Supreme Court was concerned with the nature of the Dental Board’s actions. For example, the Court was concerned that there was a direct financial interest in teeth whitening services for the board members, and thought it important to quote one board official saying the board was “going forth to do battle” with the teeth whitening industry. So the nature and way boards handle these types of actions may provide protection in antitrust suits. There are other ways boards can protect themselves without making any significant changes to the boards themselves. For example, one FTC Commissioner suggested that boards could have board members

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