Debating if health care a right: Consolidated views

“We’re not obligated by law or by “rights” but maybe it’s just the moral thing to do.”

The great thing about freedom is that you and I are both free to give however much time and treasure we choose to the medical charity of our choice.

One problem is that most medical care is not the equivalent of saving a child from an onrushing train. Sure, we would all be glad to pay for that same child to be treated for meningitis or to have his fracture treated, if his parents were unwilling or unable to do so.

On the other hand, what about the childs father who gets a disability check for a bad back, which somehow doesn’t prevent him from dragging a 230 pound buck out of the woods at hunting season. He shows up at the ER towards the end of every month, crashing from the cocaine he can’t get because he has spent his disability check, reporting suicidal thoughts and asking to be detoxed off the coke and alcohol. The taxpayer, in his compasion, pays for each and every one of these 3-10 day stays at a rate of about 80,000 dollars a year. He never keeps his follow-up appointment and never takes his meds, going back to coke and alcohol within days.

But no one ever tells him “No” because of EMTALA, and because he has a Medicaid card that grants him an entitlement to medical care.