Health Care is a Need, Not A "Right"
Rights are freedoms of action, such as the right to free speech or the right to contract, not automatic claims on good or services that must be produced by other. Rights thus impose only negative obligations on others -- my right to free speech means that my neighbor (or the government) cannot stop me. If my neighbor leaves me in peace, then he has not violated my rights.
There can be no such thing as a "right" to a good or service that must be produced by another -- that's just a form of state-sanctioned theft or slavery.
The American Founders recognized this crucial principle when they spoke of our rights to "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness". We have the right to pursue the goods and services we need, such as food, clothing, shelter, and medical care. Those are genuine needs of human survival. But we cannot demand that others produce them for us as a matter of "right" -- such a demand necessarily violates the actual rights of those who must produce them.
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Seriously I can't believe I just read that!! It is morally right to help those in need! I think you need to sit down and read what you said and think what is morally right! I hope you see my side of the argument I am by no means a Universal Health Care supporter but still everyone needs health care and that's why I believe we must give it to them just not the way that was proposed by our Liberal Congress!
Thanks for letting me post my thoughts!
The Humble Conservative,
nguiney14
I just wonder how you feel about our "right" to fire and police service, education , and free legal counsel?
Members of a civilized society recognize that all humans are vulnerable to disease—this is something we have in common—and so we willingly pooling our resources to protect each of us against the hazards of fate.
There are positive rights. A right to life is one of those rights.
Here's the thing. I'm a Viet Nam vet currently on my wife's insurance, so I'm happy with the system as long as my wife keeps her job. So the only reason I want universal health care is to make sure that everyone else remains healthy and won't contaminate me. That's my right, to not be infected by some untreated disease carried around by one of the uninsured.
Of course if my wife gets laid off like a few dozen of her co-workers did last week, then I'm totally screwed. Oh, I'll get health care somehow, but you will pay for it with higher insurance premiums etc. So thanks for that.
Looking to the Declaration of Independence for legal precedence sets a dangerous precedent. It was not ratified by "the people", just the signers. Would Tom Jefferson walk by a pour soul having a grand mal seizure? Or John Hancock ignore some wretch bleeding to death on the sidewalk from a knife attack? These were honorable men, and I'll betcha they would all be horrified that a country with so much wealth, and so much medical knowledge and technology would withhold it from anyone who needed it.
Universal health care doesn't have to mean single payer, or rationed care, or loss of control over your choices of providers. There's plenty of smart folks in this country and we'll figure it out for you. Just get out of the way so compassion and common sense can prevail.
And having been drafted, I was an enslaved soldier for almost two years. You're welcome.
There are plenty of smart folks in this country. The problem is none of them are running the government . I don't agree with the draft, and I would have no problem paying increased taxes to pay for the health care of people similarly abused by the government. However, what you are asking is that all people pay for a service they don't need and could obtain in another fashion if they did, just so there would be enough money to pay for the care of everyone else. That is simply theft. We have programs to help people pay for care, and no hospital can turn away a critically ill patient, so critical health care is not denied. Surely you will not be as comfortable as those with money or good insurance , but you will be treated regardless. I see no moral obligation to provide extended non-critical care to individuals who cannot pay. If you think it is a possibility, get insurance. If you can't afford insurance, we already have programs to help. But under no circumstances should you force me to purchase insurance I do not want. The best you can do is tell me I should have gotten insurance and send me on my way if I cant afford the desired treatment . It sounds harsh, but we can't afford to protect people from their own stupidity, and there is no moral impetus to do so.
The other underlying issue is that this plan will not lower insurance costs and does nothing to control health care costs . True reform would attempt to reduce the driving costs of care, not hide it with parlor tricks.
You make many good points, but please allow me to correct the record on the requirement to have health insurance . The deal is if you do choose to not purchase health insurance, even with the governments help, then you will be fined. That's one of those spitting on the sidewalk laws ...most likely never going to be enforced.
We don't want the hospitals to stop treating the seriously ill for several reasons - all pragmatic and self-interested as I mention above. So I would consider the "fine", a pre-payment into the general health economy against the almost certain event that you will find yourself in a hospital emergency room at some point in your life. God bless you if you don't.
This " stimulus " for the health care industry will bring forth the best of American ingenuity and entrepreneurial energy . There are a great many technological and procedural changes which can and will be made by those smart people we agree are around. Thank God they aren't in government , but out here in the business world where we need them.
I'm thinking that the push to digitize health records for sharing among care-givers (not repealing HPPA), would be a fine start. It's already happening, but will take years to get all those pages of notes in your doctor 's file on you into digital form so he or she can look up your history in a flash.
Taxes aren't theft. They are the cost of living in a civilization. You can always go off the grid and live off the land somewhere else, but you know that. We all want the most bang for our tax buck, and I for one think this is a good value - all things considered.
"That's my right, to not be infected by some untreated disease carried around by one of the uninsured."
BEST INTERPRETATION EVER. :)
I feel a great amount of sympathy for you that our nation enslaved you for two years. I am firmly, and absolutely, against the draft on moral grounds.
Do you ever wonder why everyone gets their health insurance through their job? What brought that about? Why don't we buy health insurance on our own? What stops us? Why can't we buy health insurance from another state if it is cheaper?
Here is a great article that I suggest should everyone read.
http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2007-winter/moral-vs-universal-health-care.asp
Please don't let the government draft me into a universal health care system against my own will for the sake of someone else's need. It was wrong in Viet Nam -- It is wrong here. It is not compassionate, and it is not moral.
Okay, I read the article you linked. Many good points, and many bogus to my thinking. I think this is the central issue of the decade, and the most important conversation we can have.
As the baby boomer demographic bulge moves into the medicare - end of life medical issues era, health care represents the biggest opportunity and challenge of our generation. Just as transportation and computers dominated the economies of the last century, health care will be the economic engine of this one. Fortunes will be made, governance will be adjusted and at the end of the day our national vision will be to live forever. And we will be the first generation to achieve that goal.
I urge all those opposed to the current what they believe to be the proposed new paradigm to flip their thought process to the contrarian point of view. Bring new, outrageous ideas to the table. This is going to happen, that's a given. Make your insights an important influence on the final (or at least the first iteration) of the solution.
So, can we count on your no changing to a yes?
Don't worry, I'm sure there are many visions for universal health care in this country. It seems to me that what most supporters want is an outcome where everybody can get and afford health care. In my case I have had heart and vascular surgery (among others) which make me uninsurable. I for one support a voucher system which would allow everyone to choose their provider. The government would have to open their employee health system at the voucher price (ie free to all), but private insurers could compete freely for the voucher payment by offering better products.
I didn't know you couldn't purchase health insurance across state lines. There are many valid point the "no" side bring up. I would accept tort reform as part of the solution. The strength of our democracy , and this new way to converse called the Internet, is that we can blend the best ideas from all to arrive at a better way. I wouldn't want anyone to feel they were "drafted" into a health insurance system that they didn't want.
I'm sure all employers would love to get the health care benefit off their books. They could still offer sweeter deals as recruitment tools. But once this gets passed, watch our economy take off. The potential growth in the GDP could absorb the absurd debt we are forced into.
As for the draft. I didn't go to Canada because I like America and had no reason to believe that an amnesty would be offered later on. But even so, at the time I believed that countries have the right to conscript armies when necessary. I'm still thinking a 2 year government service requirement for all wouldn't be a bad thing. Almost all moral systems allow for obligation to the greater society .
But this is a great topic for another heated thread. I'll read your link later, but I don't cast my argument for UHC on moral grounds, rather on practical and economic benefits which I believe all will enjoy once this paradigm gets shifted.
The right to life should come with the government dealing with the funding of a state-supported health care system.
There is nothing saying that anyone has to be 'enslaved'. Police officers are a requirement, Ambulance drivers are a necessity, Fire Departments are an essential service all funded by public money. They do it because the pay is good and because they like to help people for the most part.
I mean Doctors take oaths and such like 'Do no harm' and as a profession they have ethics that dont permit them to walk by a person bleeding on the street with stab wounds without trying to save their life. Just like a police officer isnt supposed to sit by and watch some convenience store get robbed.
If I am granted a right to health care then I am granted the right to enslave those who must provide it. I have been given control of the life of the health care provider.
If there were no people who had a passion for medicine a passion to invest the time in learning the tremendous knowledge and skill, where would this "right" to health care be? Who could you force to provide this right?
Doctors and hospitals are not natural resources that appear in our environment like stones and mud puddles. Arguing over your right to the life of another is not only wrong it is pure evil.
You are currently granted the right to police protection against crime. Does that mean you are "enslaving" policemen, or the taxpayers who must provide the money to fund the police? Have you been given control of the lives of your local police officers?
Along the same lines, are you "enslaving" the military, who provides your national defense? Are you "enslaving" judges, who provide your right to a fair trial? Judges and courtrooms are not natural resources any more than doctors and hospitals. If there were no people who had a passion for law and justice, a passion to invest the time in learning this tremendous knowledge and skill, where would your "right" to a fair trial be?
The fact is, of course, that EVERY right requires "forcing" someone to provide something to you. The right to a fair trial requires judges and courtrooms, and taxes to pay for them. The right to not be murdered requires policemen, police stations, and taxes to pay for them. How is health care any different?
All rights are based on needs. A "right" is simply a basic need that society has decided to satisfy for everyone. We NEED security from crime, so we've decided to give ourselves a RIGHT to it. We should do the same for health care. It is just as basic.
Rights confer only a negative requirement on others. They can in no way force them to act a certain way. My right to life in no way infringes or conflicts with any other "real" right held by any other person. Under no possible moral social system did any other have the right to murder me, so I cannot be forcing them by requiring that they not murder me. I am imposing nothing on a crook by "forcing" them not to steal my property.
Just like the military and those in the justice system are not "forced" to act on my behalf. Using their own free will and their own right to their own life they decided to work in that line. If they had all decided otherwise I would have no "right" to compel them otherwise, I would simply have the decision to defend myself or not. Fortunately for me, I was born into a society that was founded on individual rights populated by many who are not willing to live under any other system so they chose to defend their rights, physically if necessary.
I suggest you review the fundamental right to life, and the derivative rights liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness. And ensure yourself that my having these rights in no way imposes any action or duty or requirements on anyone else, the only thing "imposed" on them is that they not violate my rights. That is use physical force against me, they not steal my property, imprison or kill me.
Much more on this line can be understood reading Ayn Rand's article "Man's Rights," available for free here:
http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=arc_ayn_rand_man_rights
Your right to life imposes nothing on your would-be murderer, but it imposes something on a third party: the taxpayer, who must fund the police that will arrest your would-be murderer and thus protect your right to life.
Likewise, if you don't want a crook to steal your property, you must either (a) defend your property by yourself, using your own money and abilities, or (b) force taxpayers to give money to support a police force and court system that will defend your property.
If (b), then your rights place a positive obligation on other people. If (a), then your rights only exist as long as you can defend yourself from violent attackers - so might makes right. There is no other choice. Either might makes right, or you must force other people to pay money for the protection of your rights.
Of course the military and those in the justice system are not "forced" to act on your behalf - just like doctors would not be "forced" to act on your behalf in a universal health care system. I was merely using an analogy to point out that your original argument was absurd. The status of doctors in a universal health care system is exactly the same as the status of judges in the current justice system.
As for Ayn Rand, she was a second-rate, incompetent philosopher who ignored any argument she didn't like. I suggest you read David Hume, who explains why you cannot derive an "ought" from an "is," (which is what Rand tries to do), as well as Jeremy Bentham, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, John Stuart Mill, Immanuel Kant and John Rawls. They all have different conceptions of rights and provide different arguments to support those views. The point is that the issue of "rights," and the question of which rights are legitimate, is an extremely long philosophical discussion that has occupied hundreds of books. It is unbelievably arrogant to claim that you have the final word on the matter.
"If I am granted a right to health care then I am granted the right to enslave those who must provide it. I have been given control of the life of the health care provider."
Honest to God, I think pretty much all arguments for government entitlements fall apart with that sentence of reason alone.