Do you believe health care should be a right?

I'm just curious who thinks that healthcare is a right? My second question is what exactly do you mean when you say that healthcare is a "right"?

Every time people discuss healthcare, this issue seems to come up, but I don't think people are really thinking about what they are saying when they say that healthcare should be a "right". Suppose I get sick, and go to a doctor and ask for him to help me, but he says that he will only help me if I pay him, what do I do? Do I have a right to force him to help me? Do I have a right to force somebody else to pay him to help me?

For a minute, I will suppose that people do have a right to healthcare, but where does this right end? Simply saying that people have a "right" to healthcare is completely meaningless, after all, if nobody is there to give me healthcare, or I am unable to get in contact with a doctor, it really doesn't matter what my "right" is. So let's suppose that there is somebody to give me healthcare, I also need to travel to get my healthcare. So do I have a right to a car? Do I have a right to the gas? How about my license? I was always taught that a license is a privilege and not a right, but if you are assuming that healthcare is also a right, and if I need healthcare, do I have a right to drive a car to get my healthcare? Do I have a right to a phone (I may need to contact an ambulance)? How about electricity? Given all these other "rights" that must be added in conjunction with the "right" that people now have to healthcare, how do you propose we give people these rights? Do we force people to become doctors, make cars, make phones, etc.?

I am asking all of these questions, because people don't tend to ask questions anymore. It seems to me that Americans are content with hearing an idea and accepting it without challenging it or actually thinking about it. "We need healthcare, therefore, healthcare should be a right." It's simple and elegant, but it just doesn't work like that. To clarify, because I'm sure I'm going to (*)(*)(*)(*) people off with this post, I would LOVE if everybody had access to healthcare. I would also love it if people didn't have to starve and we had enough energy for every person on earth to live the life that they want, but that is just not possible at this time.

 

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There are services that offer a ride to elderly and handicapped people who are unable to, to their healthcare appointments.

For the rest of us there is public transit that includes cabs, busses, trains, walking, biking etc.

But most of your post is ridiculous. Licences? Phones? Ughh

 

That was a great response that you clearly put a lot of thought into. So with a cab, train and bus, do I have a right to force them to drive me? How about the doctor, do I have a right to force them to give me the healthcare, or force somebody to pay for it? I know it's gonna be hard, but I would like you to ACTUALLY think about these questions before answering...otherwise you're response is going to be just as ridiculous as this one =)

 

This is where you are being ridiculous and refuse to play with you. Good day sir.

 

Another EXCELLENT response...maybe next time you should proofread your sentence before responding. Good day =)

 

I don't believe that "rights" really exist, but even if they do, my answer would still be no. People should be allowed fair access, but not guaranteed access to health care. Rather than try to cover everybody by insurance, I would rather we just require that the uninsured be charged no more per procedure than some benchmark on the insurance rates. I really wouldn't care if that were highest, lowest, average, or mean just so it did not exceed the highest price paid by insurance carriers with which the provider contracts.

 

This is the first question I have read and responded to here on this forum or any of the threads. These same questions run through my mind all the time about what should be 'free' and what should be earned and/or paid for.

Should a citizen have a greater 'right' to health care or an illegal that goes to a free clinic? Are my 'rights' violated because I have to pay more for health care and don't get a subsidy?

I have a brother with mental illness and he gets 'free' health care as a result of his bad actions which keep him locked up to protect us from him. The laws of the state where he is require that all inmates be given regular and sometimes irregular health care. Is that a 'right' or a 'privilege' extended to wrong doers only?

Lines are drawn on these 'rights' and it seems to be drawn upon 'wealth' lines now. My insurance plan was cancelled and my new rates are $130 more per month and my deductible is higher. My 'right' to health care has been changed by the ACA.

Clearly health care is not an absolute 'right' for anyone because it depends on your income although in some areas you can't be denied treatment in an emergency room.

 

There are human rights even in countries where those rights are violated. The rights themselves are universal and don't necessarily cease to exist if they aren't being put into practice. People have the right to healthcare no matter if a government is actively working against that or for that.

 

I do believe that your rights are absolutely violated when you don't get a subsidy for healthcare because you aren't poor enough, but it is a slightly different right that is being violated (in my opinion, it is your 5th amendment right to due process because the government is taking your money from you without due process, and giving it to somebody else who they feel "needs" it, but that is a whole other topic lol). Free clinics are great resources and if companies want to start non profits, I STRONGLY support that, as those are the things that make our country great. I don't have a problem with people actively promoting their own values through free speech. If I want to help people get healthcare, and I open up a non profit that serves people for free, I believe I am using that free speech to set an example for how I think healthcare should be run. I do, however, have a BIG problem with imposing the values of the majority on the values of the minority through force, which is what the ACA basically does (aside from the fact that the law is an awful mess, the idea of "healthcare for all" being voted in as a law is, in my opinion, the imposing of the majorities values on the minority through force, and that is morally repugnant in my opinion).

I LOVE your 3rd paragraph, because I never considered that, and you make an excellent point, especially in regards to mental health. If I tell people that they don't have a "right" to things like surgery or medicine, there are not a lot of negative externalities, except for maybe the children of parents who have medical issues. One issue with giving people that "right" is that people will be less discretionary with the treatment of their own body, after all, they don't have to pay for it, somebody else does. Mental health is a completely different issue because, as we have seen, there ARE negative externalities that arise from a lack of mental healthcare for those who need it. Now, I don't believe that men and woman who broke the law have a right to extra healthcare, and should get the minimum required healthcare to keep them alive. This may be tough of me, but spending money to help people who broke the law is not only irresponsible, but also creates a negative incentive for law abiding citizens who can't afford healthcare. That being said, I have not thought of a decent solution to the problem of mental health in our society, but it is a big problem that definitely needs to be addressed. As somebody who has had mental health problems in the past (although I NEVER would have hurt another person...I had a problem with wanting to hurt myself), I will say that having resources for people with mental health is a necessity in this world. It is important to remember though that mental health problems can, in my opinion, be solved without a doctor. As somebody who has seen and talked to many psychiatrists, I have found that they aren't really much more than drug dealers with a license. Their most common solution is "here's a pill, if you wanna kill yourself, let me know and we'll try a different pill." I spent a few years on these BS pills, and then stopped taking them and figured out how to solve my problem on my own.

A quick point about your problem with the ACA, one important thing to remember is that the ACA and Obama (and the dems) never promised healthcare for all, they promised health COVERAGE for all. The ACA is one of the worst laws in our countries history, and it is a typical bureaucratic nightmare that idiot politicians thought up (politicians who have NEVER worked in the health insurance field in their life). Back to this coverage vs. care distinction though, Obama's promise of health coverage is just as empty as a promise I could give to people in Somalia that they have a "right" to healthcare. Just because you are covered for a certain condition does NOT mean that you will be able to get care. Another issue that is important to consider is who should get the healthcare in the end? Suppose Bill Gates, myself, and a senator all need surgery for some problem, and we all have this supposed "right" to healthcare, who gets the healthcare? Well, in a market economy, the person that has provided the most for society (Bill Gates) would get the surgery because he would be able to pay the most for it. However, when the government takes control, it would obviously be the senator who would get first dibs on the surgeon because the money of Bill Gates does not match the senators political power that he can use to get his way. As Ayn Rand explains in Atlas Shrugged, we are moving from an aristocracy of money to an aristocracy of pull. Here is a great video explaining the difference between the two, but the speech in the book is much longer and more elaborate, and I would strongly suggest it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYJtHd28BXU

 

So how far does that right to healthcare extend? Our right to speech, for example, has it's limits. I can't threaten to kill you or yell fire in a theater because those create negative externalities. So what are the limits of this "right" to healthcare that you are talking about? Suppose I have pancreatic cancer, do I have a right to force somebody to do the research required to come up with a way to help me? Healthcare is a resource, and as with any resource in a modern economy, it is a scarce resource. Saying that people have a right to healthcare is to imply that healthcare is an unlimited resource that doesn't need to be properly allocated. Suppose Bill Gates and I get sick, and there is only 1 doctor who can help us, who gets the doctor? We both have the same "right" to healthcare as you say, so I have just as much right to that doctor as he does, the fact that he may be able to pay the doctor more is irrelavent, after all, the true right to free speech does not depend on your wealth, free speech is a TRUE right (that should be) guaranteed to all, with some limits that are also uniform for all people. This is not possible if you give people a right to healthcare.

 

No, healthcare is just like anything else. You should have a right to buy a policy if you so choose, but you should neither be forced to nor have any "right" to anything because of it. You have a right to the care set forth in the contract you sign when you pay your premium.

As a libertarian, I believe in the right to life, liberty and the persuit of happiness.

--"Right to life" doesn't mean a "right to everything and anything free that extends this life". It simply means you have a right to not be killed. You don't, however, have any rights to live forever. You can die.

--"Right to liberty" doesn't mean a freedom to do whatever one wants without recourse. However, being libertarian, I do believe that as long as what you do doesn't effect others, it should be ok.

--"Pursuit of happiness" means you have a right to do what you want to, within the confines of the law, that makes you happy.

 

In the way the founders and most other enlightenment thinkers thought of rights, no. Healthcare isn't a right. Rights don't force other people to do things for you, like the right of healthcare would entail. We don't think that food, water, or shelter is a "right" either. I believe everyone should have those things, including healthcare, but I don't think they are "rights."

 

So, being a libertarian myself, I agree with you on most points. I am curious though, when you say that you have a right to buy a policy, are you implying that somebody should be forced to insure you even if they don't want to? I know that some people may not believe that healthcare is a right, but they don't think insurance companies should be allowed to discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions. One of the most often argued points that I hear is that they are "lining their pockets with money" but if these people actually looked at the financial statements of these health insurance companies such as UNH, AET, WPT or CI (the 4 largest private insurance companies), they would see that the most profitable one, Cigna, has a profit margin of 4.78%...not exactly what I would consider "lining their pockets" when compared to most other large corporations. That being said, I will concede that the execs of these companies make a crapload of money. I have a feeling, as a libertarian, you will probably agree with me on this point, but I was just curious because you mentioned that "You should have a right to buy a policy if you so choose" which could be perceived as "You have the right to insurance" which can be just as wrong as the right to healthcare (the only difference is that you are now using force to make somebody insure you as opposed to using force to make somebody provide you with healthcare).

What bothers me most about law makers and regulators is that they often have NO CLUE what they are talking about when it comes to things like insurance (and most other things that they think they know about, but insurance is the biggest and most recent one). I look at people like Obama, who is a career lawyer and politician who has never spent a day working for an insurance company, and yet he has the audacity to step up and tell these companies, who have been running successful businesses for years, how they should run them. Sebelius is only a hair better, she at least has an MBA, but is almost as dangerous as Obama and his JD because it makes her think she actually knows what she is talking about, when in reality, she doesn't. My sister, who is a HARDCORE liberal with a masters in political "science" (btw...calling political "science" a science is extremely degrading to what science truly is, and as a person who is majoring in math and absolutely LOVES science, I think they need to change it to political philosophy because that is what it is...but I digressed), but she worked for a few congresswoman in DC, and I'm not sure which one she worked for, but one of them DIDN'T KNOW WHAT THE UNITED NATIONS WAS!!!! She called her team of tax funded employees into her office and had them do a bunch of research on what the UN was so that they could teach her about it. Yea...I didn't even know how to respond to that, but it's like senator Mark Pryor (D-Arkansas) said in Religulous "You don't have to pass an IQ test to be a senator..."

Sorry for the random tangent, but sometimes when I start typing about politics, I just can't stop lol

 

We will all die, but that doesn't mean one should not be able to go to a doctor and die of the flu because they are poor.

How noble.

Many pot smokers might disagree.

 

I'm not really sure how you can interpret what I said to mean that anybody should have the right to force you to buy something for someone else. I said that you have the right to buy a policy yourself. No where did I say that I thought anyone else should have to buy it for you.

 

emergency health care should be a right, addl health care should be avail with a reasonable co-pay, just to keep the hypochondriacs from abusing the system

 

lol no, I'm sorry for being vague, I didn't mean that you have the right to force somebody to BUY something for you, I'm talking about forcing somebody to insure you. You said that you have the "right to buy a policy for yourself," and that is a somewhat ambiguous use of the term "right". Suppose I go to an insurance company and say "I would like an insurance policy" and they say that they can't insure me because I have a pre-existing condition. Do I have a right to force them to insure me? I'm not forcing anybody to buy it for me, I'm just asking if I should be allowed to force the company to insure me (which could be a perceived implication of the "right to buy a policy for yourself"). Please don't take this as me attacking you or anything, I'm sure we are on the same page as libertarians, I just think that all of us should be very careful about how we use the word "right" in any context. Did you mean that people have the right to buy a policy for themselves provided somebody is willing to insure them?

 

What do you define as an emergency, and how do you define reasonable? I know this sounds like I'm being extremely anal, but these are important questions to consider when claiming that people have rights to something.

 

I agree, so tell me, how are you helping these poor people? Or do you just think that we should just pass laws to get the government (i.e. the people with a monopoly on legal force) to force people to either pay for a doctor or provide healthcare? If you want to help those poor people, you can give to charity, become a doctor, or help raise money to help those people by asking and/or raising awareness. However, doing nothing and asking the government to take from somebody, whom you don't know, to help somebody else is not noble or admirable. You do not have a right to impose your values on me through force (government). Thanks to the first amendment, however, you do have the right to tell me about your values, and try to convince me to adopt them as my own. You also have the right, thanks to the first amendment, to SHOW me your values by giving your money (something of VALUE) to charity or other organizations that you support. St. Jude, for example, is my favorite charity. It isn't a lot of money, but I know it'll go to better use than giving it to a government bureaucrat to redistribute.

"Government is not reason, it is not eloquent, it is force; like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master." - George Washington

When he was talking about "the right to do what you want to, within the confines of the law" he was making the assumption that the law is there to protect property rights of individuals. A law making it illegal to smoke pot is a contradiction of ones right to the pursuit happiness, as smoking pot does not violate anybody else's property rights and should therefore be legal. Since your body is your property, you have the right to do with it what you please.

 

Uh, easy. Immediate life threatening.

 

That's a better answer, but there's still a lot of ambiguity there. Let's say that we were given that right. Suppose I have cancer (it is operable for the sake of this argument) and I'm going to die in a year, do I have a right to healthcare? How about if I had 6 months to live? 1 month? 1 week? At what point does my cancer become "immediately life threatening" to the point that I am granted the right to healthcare? That addresses the problem with defining "immediate". There is also a problem with "life threatening". Obesity is life threatening, and to some it may also be "immediate" depending on how you define it, should morbidly obese people have a right to liposuction? How about smokers, do they have a right to healthcare if they get lung cancer that could kill them without surgery?

There is still a big hole in the "Give care to poor people whose lives are in immediate life threatening danger" (assuming you have defined what is life threatening and what is immediate). You're driving down the highway, and there's a 6 car pile up, and you along with 20 other people are injured to the point that it is life threatening (I think this is a case in which we can agree that it is both immediate and life threatening). Who is top priority to see a doctor? If you are assuming that anybody who has an immediate life threatening problem has a right to healthcare, then money doesn't matter, and every one of them has a right to see the doctor, but who gets to see the doctor first? If they all had money or insurance, then the ones who could pay would get first dibs on the doctor, but if you are calling healthcare a "right" in the case of an "immediate life threatening emergency" then money becomes irrelevant because they all have the same right to the healthcare that the doctor is providing. This is the danger in calling something a "right". Sure, I can agree that we may need some money to go towards a safety net if they are in immediate life threatening danger. I don't, however, believe that immediate life threatening danger gives you a "right" to healthcare.

One assumption that I am making in all of these arguments is that a right is equally applied to all people. The Bill of Rights, for example, is equally applied to everybody. We all have the right to say what we want, but there are limits which apply to all of us as well. We all have a right to be secure against unreasonable search and seizure is a right granted to all of us. It doesn't matter if you are a powerful politician or a homeless person, these rights are equally applied. If the rights are not equal, for example, if my right to healthcare in an immediately life threatening situation supersedes your right to healthcare, then my whole argument falls apart. But if that is the case, where my right supersedes your right, then I would call it a privilege and not a right. This is often the case when politicians talk about "rights" to things like healthcare. The most obvious recent example is with the ACA, in which everybody was supposed to have a "right to affordable healthcare". Congress forced everybody into a healthcare system, and then unilaterally decided that their "right" to truly affordable coverage superseded the people's right, and they gave themselves a hefty taxpayer subsidy to help them pay for their affordable care (they would have lost a few thousand dollars out of the 120K+ that they are already making...poor congress).

 

I don't think any individual has the right to force another person to provide them healthcare (or anything else), so no, I don't consider healthcare a right.

 

That's a hard enough question for anything, let alone something as complex as healthcare.

I'm not convinced we, as a human society, have really established what "rights" are. Some people talk about fundamental or inalienable rights yet others (myself included) don't think such things really exist. We have international declarations of human rights but lots of people either disagree with some of them or their interpretations or dismiss them entirely (at least when they're inconvenient). Then individual nations, states and communities declare their own rights, though again, they're often disputed, circumvented or ignored. When it comes down to it, do we really have any rights at all?

All of that's before you talk about what having a right actually means in practice. The right to life is probably the most commonly accepted principle but even that doesn't mean there aren't situations where it's considered acceptable to take someone's life - legal execution, self-defence, combatants in war. It also isn't taken to mean that anyone is necessarily forced to prevent you loosing your life. Some professionals and organisations might be given statutory duties but even those come with conditions and context.

I'm not sure individual rights is the best way to approach this kind of question, especially something like healthcare. As you demonstrate, that will tend to be too individual, too selfish and will simply put people in conflict. It's better to look at it from a wider principle, what rights do the community as a whole have and therefore what does that community need to do to best protect them. It becomes what can we do for ourselves rather than what can you do for me.

And isn't that how most modern societies have developed, naturally rather than with any significant control? Governments make some kind of healthcare prohibition (be it state run, supporting a private structure or a mixture of the two) not to provide for your individual rights but because a healthy population is good for society as a whole. That's why we don't, in general, ever have to ask the kind of questions you raise.

Then we just have to determine what responsibilities we each have to our own societies.

 

So rather than giving someone medication for flu symptoms, they need to go back home an hope it doesn't come down to near coma conditions?
That will save money?

 

The flu isn't life threatening. Millions get the flu each year, only a tiny handful die from it.

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You pay for the healthcare you receive. There are medical definitions to what kind of care a hospital must give free of charge. Stick to those.

According to EMTALA, the hospital makes the determination. That works for me. According to this site, more than half of all emergency room visits already do not get paid for. How much free health care should the gov't require the hospitals provide to make liberals happy?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Medical_Treatment_and_Active_Labor_Act