John’s point that while North Carolina has more occupational licensing than South Carolina does, there is no reason to believe that NC residents are safer from incompetent practitioners than are SC residents brings to mind a book I reviewed last year. (Scroll down to second review.)
Professor Morris Kleiner compared Minnesota and Wisconsin and concluded that there was no evidence that Minnesotans were better off because quite a few occupations there are subject to state licensing, compared to Wisconsin where free-market certification prevails.
This is another of the many instances where people are prone to underestimate the benefits of freedom and overestimate the benefits of governmental intervention.