Good God, I cannot believe some of what I read here. Health care is not a right. Nor should it be. Before you flame me, allow me to explain:
If you believe in the concept of self ownership (you own your body and mind and all that comes from that - notably your labor) then healthcare cannot be considered a right or you have just shown yourself to be a hypocrite. Why, you may ask?
Well, if you own your labor (irrespective of what it is you do for a living) then other people claiming to have a right to your labor at no cost to themselves (or having the cost at least heavily subsidized by others) are advocating the age old sin of slavery.
If you are in the medical care industry (doctor, nurse, lab tech, whatever) and others claim that healthcare is a right in the same vain as life, liberty and the pursuit (but not guarantee) of happiness then they are really saying that they expect you to provide the service of the field that you are employed in to them at no cost, at least to themselves. This is morally and ethically reprehensible to human decency and completely contrary to human nature.
Think of it this way. No man "makes" life or liberty. Sure, man can take those things away all too easily by killing or imprisonment, but they are rights inherent in your existence as a human being. This is true whether you believe that humans are a product of God or of Nature. If someone kills you or imprisons you (unjustly at least) then they have violated your rights.
Now, healthcare is a service (or in many cases a product) made by man. It did not exist when man was created. If you got sick or injured prior to the development of modern medical science, you probably died and that's just how it was. Thus, it is not a right inherent simply in your existence as a person.
In basic terms, healthcare is a consumer commodity just as is a smart phone, car, television or cheeseburger. The right to own/consume those items is not automatically conferred upon anyone simply because they were born and are a living, breathing, sentient being. How can some product or service that is a relatively recent development (modern medicine) be a right when it is a creation of man that did not exist at the time man was created (by whatever means you believe that occurred)? See the problem here yet?
It is also rank hypocrisy that those most aligned with the notion of healthcare as a right (progressive mindset) are also generally the strongest proponents of legal abortion on the basis that a woman owns her body and is free to make that choice. Ok, so you can accept and even endorse the concept of self-ownership in that instance but in the same breath will advocate the functional enslavement of an entire sector of workers (and whether you will admit that to yourself or not, that is what you are calling for) so that their labor can be taken by force for the so called common good? Wow, I truly admire your logic and consistency (no, not really).
Can any of you clamoring for "free" healthcare see how dangerous and unworkable this attitude is? By this logic one could state that eating is a right. What then? Will restaurants and all their staff will be expected to toil all day preparing and serving meals, cleaning tables, flatware and dishes for customers who come in but don't pay? Can you just go take what you want from the grocery and tell the cashier to sand the receipt to the taxpayers? Oh, and yes, this is exactly what SNAP (foodstamps) is.
I am a plumber. Is modern sanitation a right? After all, no one wants to be knee-deep in their own shite. Do you really think I would come repair your toilet for free because you claim to have a right to a clean odor free household and avoidance of a cholera outbreak? Guess again. You want a freebee, I'll stick your head in the toilet. Might even flush it first if I am feeling charitable. Otherwise, you WILL pay me for my labor. And if you claim that isn't fair, I'll tell you to piss off.
I'd like to claim the right to an Italian sports car and an orgy with a couple of supermodels. After all a man has needs and my inability to afford to fulfill said needs does nothing to obviate their existence! Yet, somehow I don't think Lamborghini will be sending me a freebee, nor will a fashion show divert their top talent from the catwalk into my bedroom. Oh well, girls lit up on cocaine are a drag anyway. Guess I'll be driving a Buick forever.
Let me break this down: rights are very basic, ethereal concepts, not things you can buy. One cannot claim a service or product produced by the labor of others as a "right" without implicitly seeking to strip others of their labor without proper compensation. This is idealistic utopian fecculence that has not and will never work on this planet. You can wish and hope to no end, reality of human nature (i.e. nobody works for free, and there is endless demand for anything given for "free") is going to bust your misguided dreams.
Anyone who posted in this thread stating healthcare is a right: what do you do for a living? Would you consider it acceptable if the fruits of your labor (whether a service or product) were suddenly deemed a right to basic human existence? If not, then you can stop calling for others to whore out their productivity and expertise for your benefit, with you acting as the pimp who gets not only the product/service but collects a cut of the profits from it.
Here is the key thing: no one works for free. No one. So, all products and services have to be paid for somehow. Either the individual who desires the product or service comes up with the funds to buy it themselves, or they find a way to force others to subsidize it's cost for them. This is where we now find ourselves as a society.
In the latter instance above, they are stealing [by taxation] the income of others (and that income of course most often is the compensation those others have received for their labor) so that they might enjoy a product or service that they could not otherwise afford or simply wish not to pay for themselves. This is still slavery as stealing the income others receive for their labor to pay your expenses is functionally equivalent to telling them they have to work for free (or at least much reduced compensation in the equivalent of how much you are taking from them through taxation).
So, we have an untenable situation. Too many think that things they cannot afford but really want should be redefined as rights, as this somehow makes it acceptable to demand others share in the cost of providing whatever -it- is they want but cannot afford.
In addition to being a form of slavery and theft, it takes the form of abuse by proxy. Those who wish to create new "rights" (that really aren't) for themselves are using the force of government to extort others by way of taxation to pay the costs that they themselves cannot or will not bear. How many times in an election do the takers vote themselves (once they have achieved the majority needed to do so) more subsidized/socialized largesse at the expense of their friends and neighbors who they feel no shame in extorting (oh, it's just a small tax increase, it's for the children, it will make things "more fair", on and on with the excuses) to provide them with services or products that they would otherwise have to buy for themselves.
Well, good luck with that. As can now be seen every major country on earth is in financial straits due to the laziness, greed and stupidity of it's respective inhabitants, too many of which expect something for nothing and there are no longer enough producers with enough "extra" money to cover the bill. Despite that, the demands never end, and governments are all to willing to use force to effect the extortion that the masses are demanding for their collective benefit. Add to this the monetary and fiscal manipulations enacted by governments and their banking/finance cohorts that serve to inflate the price of everything, and it is about to blow up in spectacular fashion.
Attitudes and expectations have to change - and they will either by collective realization that many promises that were made cannot and will not be kept, or by brute force. The latter entails much destruction and suffering that needn't be aired out here, but if you think lack of access to affordable healthcare is your biggest problem, you have seriously underestimated the gravity of your (and our) situation.
My money says we do this the hard way (again) as - for most - human thinking at an individual level is simply riddled with too many false beliefs and too much self interest to accept the things that have to be done to lessen the impact of what is going to happen if attitudes and expectations do not adjust to reality. And note that I say " lessen the impact" as there is no preventing the consequences outright. We have long since passed the point of saving the ship. We are now speculating on how many people survive the blast in the hull, avoid hypothermia and drowning and can manage the grueling swim to shore. Fact is, many of us will not make it.
