The reason why health care is a right...

You're full of (*)(*)(*)(*), Mussolini.

 

I assure you that if I had my way, people would be much freer, and have a far greater number of legal rights than if you had your way. I don't have to believe in a fantasy, in order to adhere to a set of beliefs which values peoples freedoms. I value freedom, I simply don't think it is something we are given simply by being born. It is something we need to work for and demand, or we will never get it and/or we will have it taken away!!

 

Except they already are forced to provide a service for free - hospitals are not allowed to deny anyone emergency medical care regardless of whether they have the ability to pay or not.

 

Easy solution to the problem then, have the govt create a state-run healthcare program as an alternative to the private sector programs then. Because we are guaranteed a right to life in the constitution. Healthcare is basic enough that it is a right as defined in the constitution, I'm not sure why this is even a left/right issue so much as a common sense issue.

The fact that libertarians are more interested in a person's right to use hard drugs than their right to medical care speaks wildly of their movement. I used to be a libertarian until I got blindsided by common sense.

 

No, it's not a "right" because, as you said, a "right" is a construct of the enlightenment era and that construct was never defined in such a way. Just because a bunch of ignoramuses demand something or assert something does not make them correct. For instance, "science" is also a construct, but that does not mean a bunch of idiots can get together and change the meaning of science to be voodoo magic just because they outnumber the smart people who actually know what science is.

Legal rights are no more "real" than the other rights you speak of. Ultimately, they are just scribbles on a piece of paper or an idea in the mind of some authority figure.

 

They do not require any deduction as they are self-evident.

 

What about the right of a person to be safe from a basic threat, fatal contagious diseases. I will say when one comes up the first line of defense is people who could be ill with it going to the doctor and getting checked up or to the ER if sick enough. Poor people without insurance don't go in when it would be early enough to take basic measures such as isolation we walk around and infect others. Just look at the flu if a poor person opts not to get a yearly vaccine and you don't they can give it to you. Now lets take a scary example what if a strain of bio-engineered smallpox was released by terrorists that acted like the flu and we don't see anyone while infected say it gestates in two weeks and your infectious during that time?

Just at a basic level national health care and delivery is like the armed forces or the intelligence services its a safety measure and also makes the nation healthier, more competative and more proudctive and will lead to being fitter to do things like raise troops in a draft for war duty. Otto Von Bismark set up such a system in Germany just on these grounds and he hated government programs as a rule.

 

Here's the best way I can explain it to you....all those legal rights you would issue to make everyone "much freer" could also be revoked via legislation during a future administration ...all of which would effect everyone equally upon issuance and revocation

Natural rights can only be revoked on an individual basis through due process (for individually violating another's individual natural or legal rights....homicide, reckless endangerment, theft, fraud, discrimination, etc)

 

So you suggest with a Dr shortage that we are now knowing the reality of it, who do we enslave to be Dr's to provide those with the right of healthcare?

 

Sooo....you really have nothing to add to the conversation?

Thanks for trying anyway.

 

My proposal:

Eliminate Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps, WIC, welfare, etc

Create a state-run universal healthcare program available to all as an alternative to the private sector

End result, no one's taxes would even go up, if anything our govt spending would decrease - seeing as medical bills are the primary cause of bankruptcy in the US, many of the people turning to welfare due to lacking insurance and having exorbitant medical bills - plus the welfare system is prone to abuse. Eliminate welfare and provide state-run healhcare (which obviously can't be "abused" like food stamps can for example) and the problem would take care of itself. Plus no one in the private sector would be have govt impositions enacted on them.

Easy solution the the problem. The only ones who'd complain are nuts on the left who think that people are entitled to a govt. check to spend on whatever they want (including beer and cigarettes), and libertarian nutjobs who'd feel like the private sector would be threatened by the state alternative (which means they're monopolists, and not really all that "free market" anyway).

The only problem is that ideas which have the most common sense behind them tend to get overlooked simply for being outside the box.

 

Is housing and lodging a right too? Also the right to drive a car? The right to take a vacation?

And who should pay for the right to health care?

 

isn't the right to food a right? Without food….people would get sick and need health care. You can't force people to do something they do not want to do.

 

Eliminate food stamps, and send people dried, packaged foods once a month.

The only two "welfare" programs we'd have are food for those who can't afford it, and public healthcare available to all. Welfare checks, EBT cards, would be a thing of the past. And those who have no health insurance wouldn't be burdening the welfare system anymore, since they'd have a "free" public alternative, rather than having to resort to food stamps due to being unable to pay medical bills. It's be a win-win situation - less abuse of taxpayer money thru the welfare system, and easy access to healthcare for all.

 

you have the right to have others preserve your life ? How quaint.

 

Rights cannot be given, they can only be taken away.

 

If you have a problem with the Constitution, take it up with the those who wrote it squiddy.

Hospitals are required as-is to provide emergency medical care to all regardless of ability to pay, that's the way it goes.

The state is required to provide healthcare to all as well - Obamacare isn't the answer, the answer is to create a public alternative as I already outlined - where no private sector employees will be forced to provide anything.

 

They had to have been given in order to be taken away. Rights exist only because a state or society decided that that do, they don't exist in some "universal" or "metaphysical" vacuum unless social conscious decides to make them a reality, whether for good or for bad.

 

We already have a free public option, it call the health department. Plus if medical care is a right, then exactly how do you define the people that have to offer it? Try to remember we are entering a Dr shortage situation if you look at the graduation rate of doctors and population growth in coming years.

 

Seeing as we pay taxes to the govt (which means we have less of our own money to spend on our own private medical care), I think that the govt is entitled to offer a free public alternative. If we did this, we could cut the welfare programs that we have now, which are prone to abuse as it is and simply offer a free public physician/dental care to those who are not able to afford private coverage - those desiring private coverage would still be free to choose it, and the govt wouldn't be imposing any regulations on the private sector.

 

I have never said that the state endows me rights, nor grants me rights. I am born with them. I grant the state its right to exist. That is how it is supposed to work, by my consent to be governed.

The tax is taking from my wallet involuntarily. I cannot refuse the tax because it is taken from my payroll. I never even see it first. That is theft when anyone else does it.

Yes, they in fact are. It is completely illogical to assume that you work for something and it is not yours to do with what you will. If it is not yours there is no incentive to work. Humans are creatures with needs and their base needs and impulses require that they work (hunt, gather) for food, water, and shelter.

I did not say that "property rights" are ascendent over all other rights. I've often said that those rights related to your direct person supersede "property", especially when we are dealing with government printed currency. Render unto Caesar and all that...

 

This is getting weird you and I are agreeing on things.

I believe that if I have to pay an assload of tax I'd prefer single payer from the government so that the care is bought in bulk (ie, Costco) and we all save money.

 

I had an occasion to be at one of the local hospitals yesterday.

Walking past the ER, it was shockingly evident that Mexicans and Guatemalans, certainly have no issue exercising the American "right" you advocate.

 

You're right, it woudn't be free. Nothing is free except in socialist utopias.

 

You are probably correct. It probably is a right. However, the ideal scenario is not to have govt. line the pockets of the already-quite-rich-enough by enabling you to pay the high prices, but to have the govt. bring medical prices DOWN.

In other words, if we want to imagine Nirvana, it would not be a land where a pill costs $50 and other people pay this $50 for you, it would be a land where MEDICAL needs are the next thing to free, and not items that generate profit for businessmen.