Ed Morrissey explains. But people who don’t understand, or care about the Constitution (like this Congressman who is apparently in perpetual violation of his oath of office) won’t get it. And I liked the question about whether sex is a human right. If I was asking that question of a clueless attractive female, I’d follow up with, “Then you’ll have sex with me, right? Let’s go find a room.” And if/when she refused, I’d accuse her of violating my human rights. Or she’d have sex with me. So it would be win-win.
78 thoughts on “Why Health Care Is Not A Right”
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Could government do anything if they didn’t steal the property of it’s citizens? So obviously the governments right to steal trumps any individual liberty. At least, that seems to be the basic argument.
Holding the line just isn’t good enough. We’ve got to cut the heart out of these bastards.
Every human being has a right to receive medical care. However, it is the duty of the Church, not the State, to provide that care.
The core of the argument is:
none of us have the right to confiscate the services of a doctor or nurse without their consent, and without their ability to set a price for their time and expertise. We don’t have the right to walk into a grocery story to demand apples when we’re hungry, either
Which is a false analogy. First, doctors and nurses take an oath that they will treat the sick regardless of whether or not they can pay, grocers don’t. But, more importantly, force used to induce a doctor or a nurse to treat a patient without their consent is necessarily direct. Stealing apples, on the other hand, need not involve any direct force. Only if the grocer attempts to prevent the thief from taking the apples without compensation will force come into play. That is to say, the grocer initiates the force against the thief, whereas the sick demanding treatment initiates force against the doctor or nurse.
As interesting as this is to think about, its totally irrelevant to the matter of health care. In fact, the people who make claims about universal health care being a matter of socialism are closer to the mark. Health care is about infrastructure.. or, as the typical parlance goes, the means of production. When governments build hospitals and fill them with beds and medical equipment, the means of production for health care is the property of the people. Doctors and nurses can choose to work in government hospitals and serve whoever the government says they should serve, or they can set up private practice.
Trent, the 800 pound gorilla of government-run health care is that you can’t force people to become doctors.
We’ve long ago established the precedent of the “right” to take other people’s money and give it out to buy votes. Government run health care is just another waypoint for an aging state on it’s way to the graveyard.
If we are very lucky it may be that there is enough energy and life force left in the citizenry to, like someone quiting cigarettes, kick the statist habit and extend the life of the republic for another 100 years or so. At that point in time, the eventual fate of other countries that subvert their own culture may will be more obvious and provide some obvious examples.
Trent, you want to take a mulligan on that entire comment?
I don’t know Rand. Sounds more like an argument for state-run brothels.
The Hippocratic Oath (Modern Version)[10]
“ I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:
I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.
I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.
I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon’s knife or the chemist’s drug.
I will not be ashamed to say “I know not,” nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient’s recovery.
I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.
I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person’s family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.
I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.
I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.
If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.
So Trent, where in this does it read I will do it for free? You better take that mulligan.
First, doctors and nurses take an oath that they will treat the sick regardless of whether or not they can pay, grocers don’t.
Well that is not true.
There’s a word for demanding labor from someone without compensation. That word is slavery. When you demand that others meet your needs without regard to their needs, you’ve effectively made them your slave.
Even if the Hippocratic Oath did require that doctors treat every patient, even if the patient could not or would not pay . . . so what? Is Big Brother now in the enforcing-the- Hippocratic-Oath busines?
Anything Trent writes should immediately be presumed to be “liberal” boneheadism , and that his ethics are skewed, on the basis of his statement that stealing an apple from a grocer doesn’t involve direct force.
Ed Minchau writes: “Trent, the 800 pound gorilla of government-run health care is that you can’t force people to become doctors.”
Give it time, Trent. I’m sure in his second term, “Il Dufe” will get around to it.
Your use of the word “direct” to make a moral distinction between right and wrong is novel and refreshing! Please, tell us more!
Trent is making the same distinction the thief makes when he claims claims self-defense for shooting a store-keeper defending his property. Interesting that he has a thief’s ethics.
To be fair, Trent is making a psychological distinction. Psychologists have known about the difference between immoral acts which involve bodily harm and pure property crimes — different areas of the brain are at work. That’s all well-and-good, but what does that mean?
It has no bearing on the actual morality of the act: shoplifting an apple is just as immoral as taking it at gunpoint.
The difference only manifests legally — that is, robbery is a more severe crime than burglary, which is more severe than petty theft. Yet, all of these acts are both illegal and immoral.
Trent’s analogy is over the top. However, we do not let people starve in America. That’s why we have food stamps and other programs. We also don’t let people freeze to death – we have public housing.
You may not agree with the programs, or think that they are not effective, but we as Americans have made a moral decision that people will get food and shelter.
Actually, it’s a legal decision. It’s only a “meta-moral” decision since conventional rights are neither inherently moral nor immoral – only the process of ceding rights to the government gives the act any moral cover.
“You may not agree with the programs, or think that they are not effective, but we as Americans have made a moral decision that people will get food and shelter.”
No, we haven’t. Politicians (backed by State-humpers like yourself who like to force their “morality “–i.e., dogma– on other people) have decided to force the taxpayers to provide housing and shelter. Before that people who believed they had a moral obligation to provide housing and food to other people were free to act on their supersition and donate to charity. And a moral obligation to keep their hands out of other people’s wallets.
It’s an odd “morality” that’s based on legalized plunder.
Bilwick1 – here’s how a democracy works. We all elect people from selected districts, based on majority rule. These people then go to Congress, and pass laws, again based on majority rule. Then we all (minority and majority) follow the laws. This process was followed to create food stamps.
If you don’t like what “the politicians” did, fine. Vote in new ones. But it appears that we, or “a majority of Americans,” have decided that we don’t want people to starve.
Chris, we’re waiting for you to post an on-topic comment as to whether or not health care is a human right. I suspect we’ll wait a long time.
No, health care is not a human right. It is, however, something that should be obtainable by everybody. That’s why I’ve been using the fire department / police department analogy on this topic.
Fire / police protection is not a right that you can demand, but it is a service that should be provided on a “best effort” basis. It is also a service that individuals can and should pay for if they are able.
Well, medical care is listed in the incredibly broad language of the UDHR. I dislike the term “human right” because it’s incredibly vague (and subject to “personal dictionary”), but I don’t think you could argue that someone’s “human rights” are being violated because they weren’t given all the medical attention they could possibly desire free of charge.
If, OTOH, you actively prevented people from seeking medical care that they could otherwise attain, that certainly would be a violation of human rights by every possible interpretation.
Yes, and your analogy always fails because it carries over only to emergency medical services (paramedics and ER), which is a right everyone already enjoys.
Again, the correct analogy would be to buying fire insurance while your house is on fire.
Titus – the whole point of the individual mandate was to prevent waiting until the house is on fire to buy insurance. It’s the same concept as making you pay taxes for a fire department as opposed to what we used to do, which was pay cash when a private fire company showed up.
Sticking with the fire analogy, the current health care bill is equivalent to making people put sprinklers in their buildings. The idea is control / prevent fires in a more cost-effective way.
I actually don’t like the “health care as a right” precisely because I don’t want somebody to sue for the “right” to be healthy. (Titus’ exception about actively preventing access is of course correct.) We can’t control outcomes – but we can make better outcomes more likely.
Chris, that must be why the USA is the only country in the world where the poor people are fat.
Getting back to the topic of Health Care. Nobody has to become a doctor. Anyone smart enough and diligent enough to become a doctor could just as capably pursue other career options.
The financial obstacles to becoming a doctor are very high. Medical school costs a lot of money. So does malpractice insurance. Now doctors are being told that they are going to have even less opportunity to make back their investment in time and money, and yet still be exposed to massive lawsuits on a constant basis. (Wanna really “fix health care”? Two words: tort reform.)
Those existing doctors that don’t simply “go Galt” and retire early are going to be taking more and more patients, because there’s nobody else to take them.
Up here in Canada we have regular “nurse shortages” and “doctor shortages” with not enough graduates coming through the system. Lots of grads head directly for the US – or at least they used to before the US health care bill. Probably a similar story for doctors and nurses and other medical professionals around the world – get educated at home and then go to the US, where the money is… well, now maybe not so much, depending on repeal.
I find myself frustrated by the failure of the Left to understand one basic concept: your property is your life. If you work at a job and thus earn money and use that money to buy something, that property, whatever it is, is yours because you exchanged part of your life working at that job to obtain it. That’s why theft is wrong: when the thief takes your property, he is taking the part of your life that you exchanged for that property.
I suppose once one understands that concept one can no longer remain a socialist.
Ed Minchau – yes, my property is important to me. It is not my life.
In general, I am perfectly willing to exchange some of my property for the ability to enjoy it. I’ll pay for the ability to walk down the street safely, have reasonable confidence that my food and water is safe, and otherwise enjoy civilization.
Back to health care, rural America, including downstate Illinois, of which I am personally familiar, also has doctors shortages from time to time. But we’re glad to help you up in Canada solve your problems 😉
Chris, and I’m damn glad the US military is right next door. On the other side of us is the Russian military. The Canadian Health care budget is so huge that our military is smaller than the New York City police force.
“We don’t let…”
I don’t think that means what you think it means.
I find myself frustrated by the failure of the Left to understand one basic concept: your property is your life. If you work at a job and thus earn money and use that money to buy something, that property, whatever it is, is yours because you exchanged part of your life working at that job to obtain it. That’s why theft is wrong: when the thief takes your property, he is taking the part of your life that you exchanged for that property.
But but ED life a team sport
Chris there are better ways to do what you saying than what this bill is doing.
Mandating people to buy a insurance that covers preventive care, Prescription drugs, mental health substance use disorder, these are a bit more than fixing someone up to make sure they are not dying on the street.
With the preventive care part they can make catastrophic health insurance illegal. The government has no business deciding on overall “healthiness” of a person. Which is for the most part what “preventive care” is. Then they can by subterfuge can dictate a persons whole life, prevent them from doing risky behaviors let say for example in the liberals favorite spot the “bedroom”, but also diet, activities.
One thing I never get is lot of these health care reforms is the cost savings come from trying to put people to a PCP instead of ER, I would guess a well run ER should nearly run at a flat cost the equipment has to be there, it has to be staffed 24/7, have to have lab staff 24/7, support staff for equipment. Where dose the increase cost come in other than significantly over staffing 24/7 for trivial issues such as some one coming in with a case of the sniffles instead of seeing there pcp or don’t have one. But even then how difficult would it be to set up some sort of low cost intake/triage/prioritizing system to filter, the ambulances already handle part of it. Where the person with the sniffles with out a PCP can still be seen but will have to wait.
They need to truly handle cost and supply amazed that the campaigner that campaigned on super americorps , compulsory service. Hasn’t thought of some sort of medical corps, where a reverse GI bill, a medical education with years of service in a public ER’s/medical Clinics, a big issue is people getting the education or partial education and balking on the service but the military has the same issue with highly trained positions and they have ways of handling that. Reduced cost or free education for years of service at a reduced but REASONABLE pay. These public facilities would also have staff paid at ‘competitive rates’
Would say things that need to be resolved is tort/malpractice insurance, medical education/ama licensing. Need to reduce the cost of wanting and becoming a doctor and the cost afterward, to better incentive becoming a doctor. I’ve heard stories of the AMA being pretty much a trades guild/union which for years pretty much have been father to son tradition and have tried to put limits to outsiders from joining, be it extra hoops foreigner have to take to become a doctor or limiting the # of graduates.
But but ED life a team sport
I think you’re missing a /sarc tag there.
hmm, seems some people object to my opinion that anyone who allows a starving or sick man to die is immoral. I welcome these people to put forward a moral argument why it is not the case.
Bill, “I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures [that] are required,” what is unclear about that? My point about oaths was that the doctor has explicitly stated that he will act morally.. whereas the grocer has not. This does not excuse the grocer from acting morally, but it saves him from being called a hypocrite.
Trent, because it doesn’t read doing it for free. My doctor will do everything he can for me and send me a bill.
I’ll try this once. Chris, I pay taxes and the elected government, for the good of all, creates a police and fire dept. to protect citizens from crime and fire. If I don’t own property or make enough money, I don’t pay for any of it directly. Before this bill, if I wanted medical coverage and was poor, I can applied for Medicaid. I didn’t have to. If I’m young and healthy and wanted that Rolex instead of health insurance, I could do that. But now, to be a law abiding citizen, I have to have proof of health insurance or the government will punish me. As soon as I draw a breath, the government is making me do something. A choice has been taken away from me. If I lived off the land in a National forest, eating nuts and berries, I’d still be braking the law by not having health insurance. Just because I breathe, the IRS will be REQUIRED to take MY money if I don’t have health insurance. I cannot fathom how anyone who believes in freedom can think that’s okay.
Yes, and as MassCare now demonstrates, it’s a poorly-conceived measure.
Now they’ll just send you a bill. Same with paramedics. Your point?
Bill, if that’s the case then they’re fulfilling their duty. But go back to the analogy with stealing apples.. how does it compare? The grocer won’t let you have the apples on 30 day terms just because you’re starving. If you die as a result they’ve committed an immoral act.. yes, that means I’m saying that every grocer is immoral, or, at least I would be, except that our societies have mechanisms in place to streamline the feeding of the poor so each and every one of us doesn’t have to concern ourselves with the moral dilemma. The conflict is recognized and addressed at the state level. Healthcare is no different.
Titus, indeed, that’s what sucks about the “compromise” of mandated health insurance. The sensible alternative is universal health care.
Trent Waddington checks in again with his immoral morality. The grocer is “immoral” if he won’t give you an apple when you need one. I’d ask Trent to prove this proposition logically, but these Cult-of-the-State guys react to the idea of a syllogism the way vampires react to a crucifix.
Let’s all sing with Stevie Wonder: “There is superstition . . .”
.”hmm, seems some people object to my opinion that anyone who allows a starving or sick man to die is immoral. I welcome these people to put forward a moral argument why it is not the case.” Because he has no moral obligation to? Now you go ahead and prove why he does, Aristotle.
The equall;y syllogistically-challenged Chris Gerrib concedes that “health care is not a human right.” Then he says: “It is, however, something that should be obtainable by everybody.” Can you prove that “should”? And by prove I mean logically, not by involing some Jesus parablle.
Chris G. gives me a basic civics course in how democracy works, avoiding the basic question whether a democracy has the right to engage in legal plunder. Apparently if fifty-per-cent-plus-one of the populace elect enough thieves and theocrats to office, whatever the thieves and theocrats do is right because the majority elected them. Circular thinking at its finest.
No, he has not. The grocer has no duty to feed you. You could have easily chosen some other course of action in the past that did not make you dependent upon him, and if you don’t (or couldn’t) it’s certainly not the grocer’s fault. If he’s feeling charitable, he may certainly give you an apple (if nothing else than to earn a future customer), but if you steal an apple from him, you’re still liable for the apple.
No, the sensible alternative would have been to fix legislation which presently distorts the market, thus getting more services to more people for less cost.
“If you die as a result they’ve committed an immoral act.”
No, the grocer hasn’t committed an immoral act.
hmm, seems some people object to my opinion that anyone who allows a starving or sick man to die is immoral. I welcome these people to put forward a moral argument why it is not the case.
Well first we need to know, do you have a degree in medicine or are you an immoral prick?
To add to Bill Maron’s excellent comments, we can already look at various other things the “healthcare bill” is doing. For instance, there is now a 10% tax on tanning beds. Why is a recreational/cosmetic activity now taxed? Because it is considered an activity that increases the risk of skin cancer. So, to dissuade use of tanning beds, the government imposed a sin tax premium.
Well, where else can they do this? The First Lady is starting a campaign against childhood obesity. Perhaps they can start taxing the grocer’s apple to convince people to quit eating so many. Oh wait, that would hurt the poor. Tanning beds are a luxury, not apples. So how does the government regulate the fat yet allow the poor not to starve to death? Perhaps they need more information about who is fat and who is poor. Well, they already get income information to determine who is poor. For instance, most Democrat politicians are poor, as they seem not to make enough income to pay that tax. The government can start collecting information on people’s weight and tax them accordingly to get them eat less. Now that’s freedom baby!
Yeah I know, we already tax cigarettes and alcohol to discourage bad habits. Heck, we even once banned alcohol constitutionally. Even people in Chicago could figure out then that freedom was being trampled. So now, the slow boil is on for the useful idiots. Tax the thin waifs getting a tan. Tax the chubby bankers eating too many rolls before the meal. As long as no one is mucking with their personal peccadillos, then they have freedom.
By the way, did anyway ever hear the story that cellphones can cause brain cancer? Or how about the use of DDT? Did you know personal automobiles emit smog that can affect your breathing increasing your chances of asthma?
Ah yeah, healthcare is a right!
Bilwick1 – the logical argument for making everybody pay into a health care scheme is that everybody will eventually need health care. Everybody will get sick and/or be in an accident. Not only that, they don’t know when that will happen. The “healthy 20-something with a Rolex” could get hit by a car tomorrow, or develop a non-lifestyle cancer.
Regarding “legal plunder” – I’m sorry if you find taxes to be legal plunder. But every government in history has been assessing them. (You know, “nothing’s inevitable except death and taxes.”) So yes, if the majority decide to vote in a tax, it’s okay. The solution is to change the majority.
Apparently if fifty-per-cent-plus-one of the populace elect enough thieves and theocrats to office, whatever the thieves and theocrats do is right because the majority elected them.
That’s because Chris, like most statists, believes in neither enumerated powers, the Constitution, or any limits on government.
So yes, if the majority decide to vote in a tax, it’s okay. The solution is to change the majority.
And if the majority decides to make a more final solution then, that’s okay.
Oh wait, that’s probably not what Gerrib meant. The police force will only enforce the laws stated in the Constitution. Except healthcare is not stated in the Constitution, and only seems to be some nuanced argument the other nations have healthcare laws and perhaps we can too under the Commerce Clause. Oh that wonderful Commerce Clause, famously used to allow the government to pay farmers not to plant crop to artificially keep the price high. Back then, the Progressive Democrat rationale was that it was immoral for farmers to produce too much food.
In the effort to control the budget to pay farmers (paygo), the government originally taxed the food processors. They really wanted to cut the quantity of food despite people starving during the depression, but hey it is what the Democrat majority wanted. The Supreme Court had to point out that it was wrong to tax some people to pay for the benefit of others. The solution to the Supreme Court decision? Change the majority by passing a Judicial Reorganization Bill to stack the court with a more Presidential friendly bench.
Gee, those Progressives sure seem more moral there, making food more expensive during a depressoin.
I do believe in limits in government -I draw those limits differently. I also believe in the Constitution, having taken an oath to defend it from “all enemies, foreign and domestic.” (Part of getting an officer’s commission.)
The size of the government is not that important. What’s important is what that government does.
To add – the Constitution is silent on health care. It’s also silent on powered flight, abortion and a host of other issues. This is because, at the time it was written, those issues weren’t technologically feasible. (The best thing to do in Early America when you got sick was to stay clear of doctors.)
Since we’ve decided to address these other issues via legislation vs. constitutional amendment, I see no reason that health care would be different.
I do believe in limits in government -I draw those limits differently.
The size of the government is not that important. What’s important is what that government does.
I see we exceeded Gerrib’s comprehension skills again. Not a difficult feat that. Perhaps this will help:
The discussion is about limits on what the government can do. For example, can the government declare healthcare a right? No one has discussed the size of government in this thread.
To add – the Constitution is silent on health care. It’s also silent on powered flight, abortion and a host of other issues.
I guess I missed the “powered flight for all” bill. If you mean government subsidy of FAA, then you miss what the Commerce Clause was really about (as well as other enumerated rights). If you mean NASA, well you came to the right blog. The Constitution is silent on abortion. Rather its an opinion on whether abortion means taking a life or not. Catholics, who have followed their sacraments (sort of like oaths), tend to think abortion is taking of life. But you know, oaths tend to be broken.
This is because, at the time it was written, those issues weren’t technologically feasible.
Ben Franklin would disagree.
The best thing to do in Early America when you got sick was to stay clear of doctors.
So if you think that way today, too bad. Government no longer agrees with such sentiment and you no longer have that freedom.