Is There a ‘Right’ to Health Care?

[Fran Hollar]

Is There a ‘Right’ to Health Care?
In Britain, its recognition has led to substandard care.
http://is.gd/22gft

By THEODORE DALRYMPLE

If there is a right to health care, someone has the duty to provide it. Inevitably, that “someone” is the government. Concrete benefits in pursuance of abstract rights, however, can be provided by the government only by constant coercion.

People sometimes argue in favor of a universal human right to health care by saying that health care is different from all other human goods or products. It is supposedly an important precondition of life itself. This is wrong: There are several other, much more important preconditions of human existence, such as food, shelter and clothing.

Everyone agrees that hunger is a bad thing (as is overeating), but few suppose there is a right to a healthy, balanced diet, or that if there was, the federal government would be the best at providing and distributing it to each and every American.

Where does the right to health care come from? Did it exist in, say, 250 B.C., or in A.D. 1750? If it did, how was it that our ancestors, who were no less intelligent than we, failed completely to notice it?

If, on the other hand, the right to health care did not exist in those benighted days, how did it come into existence, and how did we come to recognize it once it did?

When the supposed right to health care is widely recognized, as in the United Kingdom, it tends to reduce moral imagination. Whenever I deny the existence of a right to health care to a Briton who asserts it, he replies, “So you think it is all right for people to be left to die in the street?”

When I then ask my interlocutor whether he can think of any reason why people should not be left to die in the street, other than that they have a right to health care, he is generally reduced to silence. He cannot think of one.

Moreover, the right to grant is also the right to deny. And in times of economic stringency, when the first call on public expenditure is the payment of the salaries and pensions of health-care staff, we can rely with absolute confidence on the capacity of government sophists to find good reasons for doing bad things.

The question of health care is not one of rights but of how best in practice to organize it. America is certainly not a perfect model in this regard. But neither is Britain, where a universal right to health care has been recognized longest in the Western world.

Not coincidentally, the U.K. is by far the most unpleasant country in which to be ill in the Western world. Even Greeks living in Britain return home for medical treatment if they are physically able to do so.

The government-run health-care system—which in the U.K. is believed to be the necessary institutional corollary to an inalienable right to health care—has pauperized the entire population. This is not to say that in every last case the treatment is bad: A pauper may be well or badly treated, according to the inclination, temperament and abilities of those providing the treatment. But a pauper must accept what he is given.

Universality is closely allied as an ideal, ideologically, to that of equality. But equality is not desirable in itself. To provide everyone with the same bad quality of care would satisfy the demand for equality. (Not coincidentally, British survival rates for cancer and heart disease are much below those of other European countries, where patients need to make at least some payment for their care.)

In any case, the universality of government health care in pursuance of the abstract right to it in Britain has not ensured equality. After 60 years of universal health care, free at the point of usage and funded by taxation, inequalities between the richest and poorest sections of the population have not been reduced. But Britain does have the dirtiest, most broken-down hospitals in Europe.

There is no right to health care—any more than there is a right to chicken Kiev every second Thursday of the month.

Theodore Dalrymple is the pen name of Anthony Daniels, a British physician. He is a contributing editor to the City Journal.

[Davetopper]

It is interesting that Theodore Dalrymple has a real name. Interesting indeed.

“So you think it is all right for people to be left to die in the street?”

When I then ask my interlocutor whether he can think of any reason why people should not be left to die in the street, other than that they have a right to health care, he is generally reduced to silence. He cannot think of one.

Generally reduced to silence? I can imagine. He is suggesting something that is already happening HERE. I think it's peculiar that when people judge a health care system they judge another countries instead. Making a comparison with a country that has universal health care to a country ( ours ) that will take patients from an ER that can't afford treatment and bring them right back, gurney and all to skid row.

I can imagine anyone being asked why people should not be left to did in the street would be put off by the question. At least anyone with a modicum of humanity and compassion left in their soul.

Dying is a fact of live, but it isn't much of a privilege. But you prefer that people that do not have insurance or some reasonable way to pay medical treatments if they should need them, should just plain die.

Anthony Daniels wouldn't want equality. None of you right wing people do. There is no equality between the rich and the poor, it doesn't make logical sense that there ever could be.

But everyone should at least, regardless of standing and class have a comfortable life. I guess your greed can't see that.

[Fran Hollar]

-=topper=- said: There is no equality between the rich and the poor, it doesn't make logical sense that there ever could be.

That is the most intelligent and true statement I have seen out of anyone on the left side of the fence. To finish the statement I would add that it doesn't make logical sense that there ever should be.

[Dani Cutler]

It made sense most likely because Dave said it in reference to conservative thinking. Though I agree that there can never be equality, as long as capitalism exists and the division it brings continues.

I guess my question is, why do you think some people are better than others and are more worthy of having health care?

[Fran Hollar]

Health care is a commodity. Just like your housing and your transportation and your education. You should get what you can afford. Those who want to give should be free to give as much as they like. Those who don't want to give should not be forced.

Didn't your parents ever teach you that it is wrong to take what does not belong to you!? Will you raise your children to believe that if they want it they should just take it from those who have it? That is exactly what congress is proposing.

[Davetopper]

And so be it if they do. You have been missing points here Fran. That local governments are already taking away from people, those that already can't afford or have the ability to get the comforts that the well off already have.

Why is this really simple idea so hard to get into your head. The haves will always have, what we want is a comfortable life for the have nots, or better still those that by no act of their own never will.

Why is that so hard to comprehend. They are already taking from those that don't have anything. Where have I ever read where you have found that wrong?

I haven't.

[greg cryns]

Jeez Louise, Fran.

"That is the most intelligent and true statement I have seen out of anyone on the left side of the fence"

Goota love eletism. Simply because someone agrees with YOU does not mean that you only post really cool awesomely and intellectually profound statements.

Are you always so condescending?

Sometimes you gotta go with your gut. My gut says that providing Medical Care in today's world is an effen "right". Maybe not back when Jefferson was signing the Dec nor even as recently when President Woodrow Wilson opposed women's right to vote or even when LBJ had to to be dragged kicking and screaming to sign the civil rights bill..

Think about it. If you were run over by a bus (not figuratively) and you were unable to work and your children are starving to death, don't tell me you would sit idly by and let them starve. And don't tell me you would hightail it on your wheelchair over to the nearest welfare office. Don't tell me that.


What you are telling people who are recently unemployed and all fathers of families earning less than $40,000 a year is "tough shit, buddy".

That's what you are telling them, right?

[Fran Hollar]

It is funny that you mention getting run over by a bus and running down to the local welfare office. You almost had me figured out except for the details. Since I am my greatest asset I insure myself against short and long term disability. Disability insurance is kind of like welfare except for two minor differences. First is that I decided for myself to pay into this pot and I pay in using my own money. The second difference is that I could never maintain my current lifestyle on welfare. My disability payments, should I ever have to collect on them, will allow me to live quite well. Many people don't stop to think about their future and they pay for it later in life. I will not fall into that trap.

If a person is earning less than $40,000 a year they are not what I would call successful. There are a lot of reasons for people not being successful and almost every one of those reasons traces straight back to that person and the poor decisions they have made in life. If they are making less than $40,000 per year and have children those children should be taken out of their care an given to a family who can sufficiently provide for them.

[greg cryns]

Fran, with all respect, it sounds link you are not mortal yet.

What I mean by that is that aging causes changes in your mind as you see yourself in the world and as the world goes by.

For instance, not in a million years did I think I would be an insruance salesman (agent). But I was for 20 years. Not in a million years did I think I would have a major abdominal surgery. Yet it happened.

What jumped out in your post: "If they are making less than $40,000 per year and have children those children should be taken out of their care an given to a family who can sufficiently provide for them."

At least you are honest about how you feel about your fellow man. However, I am shocked at that statement. It is really an amazing frame of mind. Yet, I think many conservatives feel this way.

You are not yet mortal, sir.

greg

[Dani Cutler]

I guess this answers my question about why Fran, you think some are more worthy than others of having health care.

"If a person is earning less than $40,000 a year they are not what I would call successful. There are a lot of reasons for people not being successful and almost every one of those reasons traces straight back to that person and the poor decisions they have made in life. If they are making less than $40,000 per year and have children those children should be taken out of their care an given to a family who can sufficiently provide for them."

This is why we can't truly have a reasonable discussion about this, your judgments about people are misguided and a little scary. You could try and be a little more open-minded when it comes to judging people, I promise your brains won't fall out (in reference to your profile page).

And I know I make some judgments too, about the extremely wealthy, but I try to be open-minded enough to hope they will see they don't really need all the monetary wealth they have. There are other ways to live a successful life, and they don't all have to include a dollar sign. Sure, I think they can give up that luxury car. A car is not a child, however.

Yikes!

[Ernie Martin]

Greg writes:

"What you are telling people who are recently unemployed and all fathers of families earning less than $40,000 a year is "tough shit, buddy".

Well said Greg. It's the right to have health care. All the noise made by the Republicans in this current scenario dosen't make any sense and it is childish. They are putting Obama in the defense and cornering him.

[Nobilis]

"Not coincidentally, the U.K. is by far the most unpleasant country in which to be ill in the Western world. Even Greeks living in Britain return home for medical treatment if they are physically able to do so."

By the by, Greece has a national health care system. It guarantees free basic health care to all Greek citizens.

Just FYI.

[greg cryns]

I wish someone would explain to me just what a "right" is in America. If it is in the Bill of Rights, does that make it a "right"? If it is in the Constitution, does that make it a "right"?

Or is it the other way around? Whatever is not specified is a "right"? Wait, that makes no sense.

Let's see, is owning a SUV a "right"? Or flying to Florida? Or refusing to drink milk?

I really don't know. And I suspect few others know the answer to this question. Maybe 1 in a 1,000 have a clue.

I really don't care if healthcare for all is a RIGHT or not. It is just the right thing to do. At this point I say that the Public Option must stay in the Bill or nothing, like Nancy Pelosi proposes.

Why? because whatever is done right now is done forever, at least for our lifetimes. In other words, if we pass a half assed bill to trust the insurance companies, then the change to improve it in the future is gone. Zap.

By the way, as I understand it, if an insurance company does not have the power to enforce the rule of not accepting people who have certain pre-existing conditions then they will go broke. I do know for a fact that the insurance companies, especially the smaller ones, are slimy bastards who will do anything to deny coverage. This is not true of the biggies like BCBS and Aetna.

greg

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