This letter to the editor gives a contrarian opinion:
What Emma neglected to address, as most proponents of universal health care do, is who will be funding the program. I wonder who Emma believes she has the right to enslave in order to pay for her medical care. There are only two choices: the doctor who will be forced to work for free, or taxpayers.Anyone forced to work for others without choice or pay is a slave. I thought we abolished slavery a few years ago, in part because it interfered with people’s right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Emma (and anyone else who supports the idea of universal health care), it is not my responsibility to provide health care for anyone but my own family. Until I have a vote on whether or not others procreate, I should not be expected to feed them, clothe them or provide for their medical needs.
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{ 8 comments }
A little overdramatic, but generally accurate. People who favor affirmative “rights” to physical products are labor are usually pretty loathe to admit the nature of what they’re saying; they’re asserting that simply by being alive, I have a right to someone else’s labor, whether they want to participate in that transaction or not. If there’s a more erroneous assumption anywhere in politics, I don’t know what it is.
Not a new thesis — see, e.g., “The Forgotten Man of Socialized Medicine,” by Leonard Peikoff.
I agree with the “contrarian” opinion wholeheartedly.
Criminallopath: I have read most of your comments over the last 6 months and I don’t see why you are getting such a bad rap. If you cut to the meat of what you are saying, I agree with most of it.
To the last poster, does then the perceived urgency of the need obviate all obligation to pay for what is needed? Sorry, but many responsible people devote their energies and make conscious choices of employment to be able to have the protections from financial ruin that medical insurance provides. That is the purpose of insuring against catastrophe. In medical care, because most doctors will not withhold (and cannot in some cases)lifesaving care for want of payment, that shouldn’t translate into a “right” of anyone to demand without obligation to pay.
Do you think that if you failed to insure yourself for storm damage and lost your house that a builder has an obligation to give you an acre lot and a five-bedroom house?
If members of his family catch tuberculosis from uninsured people in the vicinity, then it seems to me the man has failed to provide for the health care of his family. What a sad commentary on our education system when people can’t think about the larger consequences of selfishness. Contributing to the public interest isn’t slavery: though I suppose someone should give this man an “opt out of American citizenship” clause to cover his objection.
>>”What a sad commentary on our education system when people can’t think about the larger consequences of selfishness. Contributing to the public interest isn’t slavery: though I suppose someone should give this man an “opt out of American citizenship” clause to cover his objection.”
I see, it is cold-hearted selfishness when I ask you to return something of value for the service you want from me. Somehow it is the responsibility of the stranger that you think so little of as to be unworthy of your trade to make you whole. Please, let’s duck the truth of your will to confiscate by calling the expropriated hard-earned skill of others “contributing”. And what do you, the taker of the contribution offer in exchange, or is your social compact just a one-way deal? Easy to take, easier still to take from one and bestow on another while appropriating the mantle of selfless virtue in the interest of the “community.”
Community of moochers and highwaymen. Justice requires more than taking from one for the benefit of another. But maybe you have no interest in any of that.
Dear Contributor of the common good,
Please educate yourself about public goods. By their very definition, they are something we all want or need, but if we decide not to pay for them, they are still around. Think of a bum receiving national defense, a judicial system, immediate 911 response and free ER care.
When you ask someone to contribute to the “common good” I suppose you mean they should contribute all of their time and labor and beg for food like a yogi, or to give 5% of their time to the most appropriate person? Do you contribute your time to the common good? The most needy people are children in Africa dying of diarrhea. This is treated simply with oral rehydration packets costing pennies to produce that UNICEF distributes. What percent of your income did you contribute last year to dying children.
What you want is to brainwash the public into thinking all sorts of things are “rights”. What we need to do is to decide whether universal health care is a public good that we want to pay for. Please realize that if that happens, most intelligent physicians will do something else.
The tragedy of the commons is what prevents physicians from giving 5% of their time for free. One medicaid patient tells his friends that you are willing to see medicaid and then next thing you know, your waiting room looks like the DMV.
Before you look down on our profession, look in the mirror. Unless you are an agronomy major living in subsaharan africa, you are a hypocrite.
b
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