Is Healthcare a ‘Right’?
-By Warner Todd Huston
As we all know, the Senate is gearing up to begin the debate on Obamacare. As we move forward one of the first scheduled stops will be in the Senate on June 16 as the Health Education, Labor and Pensions Committee moves to begin its mark-up of the Health Care Reform Bill. But what are the basic assumptions that underlie this bill? Let’s take a look at one of them.
In a statement issued by Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Chairman of the HELP Committee, we see at least one assumption that is popular on the left, but one that should give pause to any liberty loving American. (See pdf file)
“The Council’s report emphasizes the major economic benefit to the nation that will also be
achieved if we make health care a basic right for all. In the current economic crisis, more and more families are being forced to leave their preferred doctors, forgo medication they need, or are even losing their health insurance entirely because their employer can no longer afford a health plan. We can’t afford to miss this chance to give the American people, at long last, the health care they deserve.”
Sure, it’s “compassionate” and all to say that healthcare is a “right.” But is it? Can it BE a right? And just what is a “right” anyway?
Simply defined, a right is something that an individual can exercise (as a sovereign individual) without asking anyone’s permission. It also carries the complementary notion that in exercising that right an individual cannot obligate anyone else to participate because to obligate others to act violates their own freedom of action (summarily eliminating their freedom to refuse to act, for instance).
So, how is health care a right? After all, to exercise the “right” to health care you are necessarily obligating a doctor or other health care professional to assist you with their time and training. Therefore to exercise health care as a “right” you are forcing other people to give you care. But, since your “right” to health care forces others to act on your behalf, you are basically violating their rights to refuse to participate.
Then we get to paying for it. If health care is a “right” then you are obligating government to pay for it and by obligating government to pay for it you are necessarily obligating taxpayers to pay for it, negating their right to refuse to participate.
This means that health care cannot be a right.
And this is just one of the many false assumptions that underlie the Democratic Party’s concepts of this health care debate. It is also just one more of the many reasons why conservatives and lovers of liberty and freedom should fight against it.
Finally, it is interesting to me that liberals that want socialized health care are obligating the taxpayers to pay for it, yet they use that same taxpayer’s obligation as a tool against other things. Liberals say, for instance, that schools should not be allowed to teach anything about religion because schools get federal money and taxpayers should not be forced to pay for any curriculum that might promulgate a religion they don’t agree with. On the other hand, liberals don’t want to give any taxpayers the option not to pay for someone else’s liposuction or transgendering operations. Ah, the pretzel logic of the left.
In the final analysis, healthcare just isn’t a right. By its very nature it cannot be. So, let’s stop saying it is.
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Posted by Warner Todd Huston on June 14, 2009 9:53 am
» Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Anti-Capitalism, Communism, Constitution, Delusional Dupes and DUmmies, Democrats, Healthcare, Liberal World, Marxism, News, Socialism, States Rights, Taxes, Totalitarianism, Unconstitutional, Welfare, liberalism
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11 Responses to “Is Healthcare a ‘Right’?”
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Syndicate Me
Heath Care is a right and even if it were not, we would do well by restructuring the entire system.
All American citizens regardless of race, gender, national origin, religion, sexual preference, economic status et.al, shall have “equal” and affordable access to health care. If the private sector can provide this, fine. However they can’t and won’t. Per capita, Americans, pay more to private insurers, than the rest of the world combined for inferior quality and distribution in health care. If your argument is against government intervention in this industry, that’s a separate argument altogether.
Heath Care is a right….! We will fight for that right and take no prisoners.
My best regards,
Econolicious
Well, thanks for stopping by my communist friend. I am glad that you think YOU have a right to compel others to do your bidding Mr. Stalin. But permit me to warn you. Come to my house to force me to your will and you’ll get a nice .45 cal. present to the forehead. You see, I won’t “take prisoners” either if that’s the case!
“Heath Care is a right….! We will fight for that right and take no prisoners.” -Econolicious
I went through my copies of the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, and could not find this anywhere. Oh, this must be one of those rights that that fall under life being “fair” philosophy.
Guess what, life is not fair. If you want something work for it, don’t whine and cry to the government.
I think food is a right. Whenever I’m hungry I think McDonald’s should give me a free Big Mac. And clothes too. In fact I’m calling L.L. Bean right now to insist they clothe me for free since I have a right to clothes.
Public healthcare is not a constitutionally enumerated right, but that’s beside the point. Please consider the following.
The consequence of widespread ignorance of basic constitutional law, particularly the Founder’s division of federal and state government powers is the following. The people, including federal and state government leaders, don’t understand that since the federal Constitution is silent about public healthcare, for example, the 10th A. automatically reserves government power to regulate and lay taxes for administering healthcare to the states, not the Oval Office and Congress.
In fact, Jefferson had noted that the Founders had trusted the states, not the federal government with the care of the people. See for yourself.
“Our citizens have wisely formed themselves into one nation as to others and several States as among themselves. To the united nation belong our external and mutual relations; **to each State, severally, the care of our persons** (emphasis added), our property, our reputation and religious freedom.” –Thomas Jefferson: To Rhode Island Assembly, 1801. ME 10:262 http://tinyurl.com/onx4j
But more importantly, Chief Justice Marshall had established the following case precedent, now wrongly ignored, which appropriately limits federal government power to lay taxes.
“Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States.” –Chief Justice Marshall, GIBBONS V. OGDEN (1824) http://supreme.justia.com/us/22/1/case.html
So not only is misguided Obama’s failing stimulus package and proposed healthcare constitutionally unauthorized, but the feds never had the power to lay taxes to fund these things in the first place. So Obama’s stimulus package and proposed healthcare can be thought of as the federal government returning to the states money that the feds had stolen from the states anyway.
The bottom line is that the people need to wise up to the ongoing, illegal usurpation of state powers by the Constitution-ignoring feds and put the constitutional leash back on the federal government by doing the following. The people need to elect pro-state power leaders to the state governments in 2010 who will do this. Pro-state power state leaders need to use their power to amend the Constitution to repeal the ill-conceived 16th and 17th Amendments, the 16th A. giving the feds the power to tax citizens directly. The 16th A. has to go because it has made it too easy for the corrupt feds to lay constitutionally unauthorized taxes, in my opinion.
And once the 16th A. has been repealed and the federal income tax eliminated, the states can finance the federal government with higher state taxes for the following reason. The states can use their greater constitutional powers to serve the people to fight a downhill battle with the feds, eliminating constitutionally unauthorized federal taxes, keeping as many tax dollars in a given state as possible for financing things like state healthcare. (Did you hear that California?)
And when a state lawmaker shows the voters that they are more interested in protecting the welfare of the federal government than that of their own state, then they can look for a new job.
Health care is NOT a right. The Preamble of the US Constitution says “…promote the general Welfare [to the people]“. It does not say “guarantee.” It does not say, “provide.” It says promote – as in, not inhibit health care. National health care is a failure in Europe and Canada, so if it comes here the antithesis of “welfare promotion” will be taking place.
I think I am going to disagree with you about the issue. Although I agree with you that I have no right to make a doctor into a slave and force him to give me treatment without paying him.
I think the issue is “the mandate,” which is not happening! Old people in their retirement who have given much to this country have a right to retire in dignity. And they should not live in fear that they will loose everything they have because an insurance company decides to discontinue service. The President should sit down with all parties to improve health care and control costs or reduce the costs.
If that sounds familiar, it is because it is what Obama had told the AARP – it was what he was going to do; http://assets.aarp.org/www.aarp.org_/TopicAreas/Events/life-at-50/webstream/obama.html
If he makes victims out of those who supported him he does it at his own peril.
I am in disagreement about moving the line that Obama made in the sand. I think he considered that line very carefully before he laid it down. I reject any and all other national health care plans … I do however support seniors getting the coverage that they paid into to receive. And, I will not take services at their expense.
Econolicious,
Many Nations have attempted socialized health care in many different forms. If we should “restructuring the entire system,” which model do you believe is better? I’ve looked at other systems and I am unable to find one that is better.
If you believe the problem is the cost of pharmaceuticals … The solution is to remove the risk of lawsuits from those pharmaceuticals. Mexico for example does not have lawsuits against drug companies and the same drug companies sell the same drugs in Mexico for less money. We can either buy drugs from Mexico without the ability to collect millions in class action lawsuits from companies outside of the US or we can adopt the same practice here – The results for cost would be the same, the difference being who gets the jobs to make the drugs.
Same applies to Hospitals and Doctors. If you remove the risks from them, the prices would go down.
However, that cost rule does not apply to the insurance industry because they make 10% profit off whatever the risk is.
Econolicious: You’re confusing HEALTH CARE with HEALTH INSURANCE. There’s a difference.
Each and every person in this nation already has “‘equal’ access to health care.” No one said any Tom, Dick, or Mary cannot get the HEALTH CARE they need – if they are willing to seek it out and to pay for it. If that means sacrificing their smoking habit to obtain home oxygen, well, THEY SHOULD.
Eliminate health INSURANCE with the exception of catastrophic (major medical) and allow the market to readjust to the laws of supply and demand, and, well, guess what?
THERE WON’T BE A “HEALTH CARE” crisis.
It’s a surefire guarantee that if excess overhead associated with medical billing and haggling over insurance payments – entire departments in some facilities that cost hundreds of thousands a year to operate – were allowed to diminish, among other factors, COSTS WILL COME DOWN.
Combine that with tort reform (Sally was a crack addict and her habit caused her to deliver a 22-week preemie so she sued her gynecologist and won a multi-million dollar settlement because she’s just a poor single mom and the doctor’s got DEEP pockets, dontcha know OR Joe the 450-pound morbidly obese gentleman with hypercholesterolemia, hypertension, and diabetes took medications X, Y, and Z rather than making lifestyle changes and had a heart attack after taking medication Y and sued the manufacturer for millions because he’s just a working-class Joe and drug companies have even deeper pockets) and you’ll see prices drop like a manhole cover falling from the sky.
Well said, Warner. Econolicious, your statements make better sense when read together with the rest of the Communist Manifesto. May I suggest looking at the nationalized healthcare systems of Canada, UK, or Cuba before you demand that we replicate their failures here?
Notice how ALL the countries in the world with national healthcare are either second or third world countries?