I don’t believe that health care is a right.
That has been debated many times here before, but in reading the ACP’s Bob Doherty, he brings up another reason I hadn’t thought of.
“Once something is defined as a right,” says Mr. Doherty, “it paints people who disagree as wanting to deny those same rights. This places people who have legitimate concern about the role of government in health care in the same category as, say, past generations who opposed a woman’s right to vote or stood in the schoolhouse door.”
The fact that almost 50 million Americans are without health insurance is a national tragedy, and indeed, we need to find a reasonable way for everybody to obtain affordable health coverage. But I don’t believe people should be entitled to health care.
Some have suggested that we have a moral obligation to provide health care, but not a right. As Mr. Doherty writes, words do matter, and that small difference makes a world of difference.
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{ 19 comments }
“The fact that almost 50 million Americans are without health insurance is a national tragedy,”
When you call a lack of health care insurance a “tragedy”, regardless of why they don’t have it, then it seems kind of silly to say that healthcare isn’t a right. That’s not a very big step from one to the other.
As an RN many times I’ve admitted a patient and had to be sure they signed their Patients Bill of Rights, maybe it should be a Moral Obligation Contract…hmmm
A Right has significant force under law, and it seems problematic to continue to introduce new rights. Most rights as we recognize them stem from natural law, not from a legislative body. Rights are rights precisely because they exist outside of the rule of law, and are inherent in the individual, such as the dignity of man, etc. Difficult to guarantee a right that depends on government intervention to provide it, is all I’m saying.
the language of rights dominates nearly every controversial issue. Same Sex Marriage proponents view it as an issue of civil rights. Pro-lifers vie for the “right to life.” No matter where you stand on these issues, convincing the public that your issue is a violation of rights is key.
The issue is also very sloppy thinking about analogies. Take free speech. Does anyone pay for my Internet? for my newspapers? for cable? for a printing press? Where is my single payor universal speech insurance? There is none. Being a right does not in general come with any funding.
The speech analogy for healthcare is that you would be free to obtain any kind of healthcare that you want to buy. There would be no government interference preventing you from buying the kind that you want. (Just as there are speech crimes like perjury and conspiracy I would expect medical licensure and regulation to continue. Speech that directly causes harm is not protected, and would I expect a right to healthcare to protect harmful care activities.)
This is not what the “right to health care” folks usually intend, but that is how other core rights like speech and religion work.
I think we need to define this a little better. Everyone is this country is provided and not denied health care. This difference is whether not that is covered or you pay for it(or essentially never pay for it). I have never denied a patient care in the office or in the hospital urgent care based on ability to reimburse. Noone i know of is turned away from the emergency room because they do not have coverage.
The facts, please
The fact that almost 50 million Americans are without health insurance is a national tragedy ..
And really a gross deception — or lie.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/23/us/politics/23health.html?pagewanted=2
In that U.S. Census study, to be “uninsured,” was to be without employer coverage for ONE (1) day. A near-fatal flaw in the study.
Then the young “free riders” who refuse coverage to save money because they don’t think they need it.
BOTTOM LINE: if FAT MICHAEL MOORE (FMM) can find a perfect medical system — where is it?
Cuba? HA! Fidel flies in Harvard-trained experts from Spain — some “perfect.”
The FMMs of the world will never be happy until their socialist regulatory jack-boot is on your neck.
U.S. medicine is not perfect. Because in politics, medicine, and money (FMM’s houses: $5MM) there is no “perfect.” It is better than most — given the number of dopers, boozers, and other problems.
A “right?” HA! When the French and British stop flying to the U.S. for things they can’t get in their countries, that’s when “rights” will be important.
Gimme a break, Kev.
It seems to me that Fairhavenhorn and the other anonymous commentator have the deeper understanding. Rights are applied to the individual in a social context. You wouldn’t need rights if there was no one else around. Rights should be conceived of as the ‘negative’ obligations of others with respect to yourself. In other words – others should not destroy your property, or injure you bodily, or steal your shoes. In order to remain non-contradictory (which is what the law tries to do) you should not create a system in which one person must give up his ‘rights’ for the purpose of benefiting another. For this reason, rights do not usually have ‘positive’ expectations – such as, you will give to charity, you will run in front of a speeding bus to save a child, you will give up your money to pay for the health care of someone you don’t know, or your will give your shoes to anyone who asks for them. Setting things up in this way creates automatic conflict and the whole system of individual rights breaks down (logically, and eventually, in reality). While there may be a few special cases and exceptions to these general rules, it is important to understand this overall context.
Once you give up this basic position, then it becomes a war of all against all. Each person or group tries to get more things (obligations) out of the rest of us. This is the truly immoral position to take. This is the true dog-eat-dog world that is being created by those who don’t understand (or don’t accept) the founding principles of our constitutional republic.
One could say that food is a right. You can’t survive without it, can you ? But you still have to pay for it.
In the US, we agree that everyone should have the opportunity for basic education. Why is health care different?
” .. In the US, we agree that everyone should have the opportunity for basic education. Why is health care different?”
Apples and oranges, again –
1. A large segment of the public wants VOUCHERS — but TEACHER UNIONS FORCE the public to ONLY buy from them. Like Single-Payer nut-cases — yes, nut-cases.
2. The PUBLIC EDUCATION MONOPOLY does such a LOUSY job, by age 16, most kids would pay to get out of the system. Anyone who thinks otherwise has obviously never been in a lousy public K-12.
Apples and oranges, again –
So we think everyone should have apples and not oranges?
The government pays teacher to teach any child. If you don’t want your child taught by those teachers, you send them to a private school or home school them. Of course, your tax dollars pay to educate everyone whether or not you send kids to a public school. We do this for the benefit of society. Even higher education is funded by tax payers. Many of your doctors went to public universities for their undergraduate and medical degrees.
If we went to a voucher system, tax payers would still pay for the education of ALL children.
If our education system was like our health care system, we wouldn’t offer everyone an education-it would be only for those who could pay. Perhaps it would be included in your benefits package for you job. We could have “emergency education sites” where if you don’t know how to read, someone could charge you a lot of money to teach you how to read that form you need to fill out.
It’s not a moral obligation for someone to learn integral calculus yet we provide that opportunity for everyone. But we don’t provide them with basic health care?
“nut-cases”
From you comment, you prefer name calling to having an intellegent conversation.
“In the US, we agree that everyone should have the opportunity for basic education. Why is health care different?”
Define “basic healthcare”.
Anonymous said:
“The government pays teacher to teach any child. If you don’t want your child taught by those teachers, you send them to a private school or home school them.”
I explained above non-contradictory principles upon which rights are delineated. The example above is why, when you introduce contradictions (public payment for education), you undercut the whole system. Once that inroad is made, people like this commentator, begin to expose the contradictions inherent. The mistake, though, is in having the government provide education. It should not be in their purview.
“It’s not a moral obligation for someone to learn integral calculus yet we provide that opportunity for everyone.” Again, there is the mistake.
Parenthetically, it is a separate but related issue that the government does the ‘job’ of public education so poorly. Because parents are not directly controlling the money, via tuition, the result is rather poor.
It is also surprising that many people feel that a formal education is such a requirement today. With the internet and electronic media, almost anyone can become educated for a fraction of the cost of formal education. There are online degrees available too, at much reduced costs. There is simply no moral or logical support for our arcane system.
The comparison between healthcare and education is nice in theory, but you stop too soon. Should students who get a poor education be able to sue their teachers for future lost wages? If doctors are to work in a system similar to teachers, will they enjoy the same wages? We already have a shortage of healthcare providers with current salaries; do you think that will get better when they are making government wages? Will doctors get to take summers off like teachers do? A better comparison would be law enforcement officers; you need them on duty all the time, and the need is often acute. They are also subject to the same hostility from the public as doctors, and can find themselves in lawsuits for things that were initiated by someone else. I have no idea if this system will work, but I guarantee the outcome will not be as good as the proponents tell you.
“It is also surprising that many people feel that a formal education is such a requirement today.”
Great, I hope my next doctor got his degree on the internet.
“With the internet and electronic media, almost anyone can become educated for a fraction of the cost of formal education.”
We can all sit in our little cubicles, day after day, staring at a computer screen with little Sim characters acting out Shakespeare plays.
So I guess that answers my question. Education and health are the same.
“I have no idea if this system will work, but I guarantee the outcome will not be as good as the proponents tell you.”
But isn’t that why we have this discussion. Perhaps we should get rid of our education system and give all the money to the health care system. Which one is more important?
My son learned how to read in kindergarten and was more competent in math than most adults by the third grade. Why are we wasting our money on him when we could provide health care for that women who died in the ER from a perforated intestine because no one would help her? Or that one that sat in Kings County hospital until a blood clot killed her?
I am currently listening to my son practice his trombone that he plays courtesy of tax payers, wouldn’t you rather eliminate the band program. The $40,000 the three band teachers in our school district make could give provide health care for quite a few people.
“will they enjoy the same wages? “
In the end, it’s more about money than anything else. Do I want that Mercedes or do I want my neighbor to have access to health care? Am I willing to forgo that probably useless MRI on my knee so the guy down the street can afford his insulin? Am I willing to volunteer in my community, perhaps at a hospital or a school or would I rather get paid so I can go on that expensive vacation?
“…I guarantee the outcome will not be as good as the proponents tell you.”
I am well insured and have access to some of the best hospitals in the nation. I have nothing to gain by health care reform-and will probably be one of the loosers. Am I willing to help others-to live in a community where people matter including our health care providers? How much am I willing to pay for that?
Our food supply is subsidized and I don’t see anyone complaining about that. Maybe we can take all those corn subsidies and instead of government sponsored doritos and coke, we can pay for medical school for our doctors.
Um, so, back to the issue of rights: an entitlement does not carry the same force under law as a right, and can be readily revised by the government with no consent on the part of those given said entitlement. Rights, on the contrary, are immutable, and carry a force that is in fact above law: indeed, if a law is formed that contravenes rights, that law is deemed to be unconstitutional.
Personally, I am against entitlements. I beleive that one is entitled to what he earns. If one is UNABLE (not unwilling) to earn, then I would do my utmost by way of charity to prevent them dying in the street, but I would not say that they are entitled to anything beyond their rights as human beings to life, liberty, and a pursuit of happiness.
So, for health care, should it be an entitlement? No, and here’s why: primary care is cheap enough that it is affordable by anyone who can afford a cell phone. Yet we daily see medicare and medicaid patients shopping around for meds they don’t need, going to clinic after clinic because it doesn’t cost them a dime. How do I know this? Because we work in multiple clinics, and we’ll sometimes see the patient in the morning in one clinic, and again in the afternoon in another. Same complaint. If you pay for something, you value it, and you don’t abuse it. Currently, our services are overutilized and undervalued by those who pay nothing for them. You think that making healthcare “free” will correct this?
To close: “Ain’t nothin’ free in this life. Anybody tell you otherwise, he crazy or a liar… Pay your own way, don’t take nothin’ from nobody, then you can stand up and hold your head high no matter what company you in.”
Words of wisdom from a time we forgot.
“Education and health are the same.”
When did this become “Theatre of the Absurd?”
I don’t see Canadians, Brits, the French, or Saudis flying here for public K-12.
How preposterous.
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