Given their professed self-image as public servants, it is impossible for professional health-care associations to argue consistently against their membership's engulfment by Medicare, against the encroachment on our practices by governmentally empowered third parties, against the violation of our inalienable right of association, and against the growth of governmental agencies that seek to control the distribution of the "nation's health-care resources." If we are to reverse the trend toward total government control of health care in the name of "The Public," doctors must learn to defend their absolute, natural right to their own lives. Doctors must learn why providing health care is a right of doctors, not a privilege that they should have to bargain with politicians for. A necessary step is to learn what the public-service principle actually leads to and why it is such a destructive concept.