Tuesday, October 14, 2008
My "right" to health care
As I recall, I learned in elementary school that a right has two attributes: 1) it does not infringe on the rights of anyone else; and 2) it does not cost anything to exercise it. For example, I have the right to speak freely, and I don't have to pay to do it and neither does anyone else. I have the right to redress the government concerning my grievances, and I don't have to pay to do it and neither does anyone else. And I can exercise both of these rights as little or as much as I want to, and the rights of no other citizen are infringed upon by my exercise. Yet last Thursday evening, presidential candidate Barack Obama stated explicitly that health care is a right. It is not a privilege, it is not a commodity, it is not even an entitlement. It is a right! That means that I can exercise my right to health care (of any sort, I suppose) and it costs me nothing. No one ever has to pay for a right. Therefore, if my eyes are not working quite right, I have a right to lasic surgery. If I have cold symptoms, I have a right to a bottle of NyQuil. If I break my foot playing touch football, I have a right to a cast, and it should cost me nothing. It is my right. Of course, I would not expect anyone else to pay for it either since it is my right. So who pays for it? No one. If you don't understand how that would work, you'll have to ask Barack Obama.
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3 comments:
Well, you can't have a right to health care and not have a right to food. After all, we have a much more immediate need for food than for health care. And how can we be out in the cold and snow? We have a right to shelter, and that means a house. And what are we supposed to do with our free time? Are we supposed to sit around and read all the time? We have a right to a TV and a computer and video games. Assuming we ever have to go anywhere, and assuming there are still cars, we have a right to a car. After all, how are we supposed to get anywhere that isn't within walking or biking distance? And we all want nice cars, too. Do you think we could all order Bentleys from Lord Barack, the Most Merciful? OK, how many Bentleys will that be, then? Hmmm. You say we don't have that many Bentleys? Well, let's get back to health care: Hey, I'm sick; I want the best care available. And that means the Mayo Clinic. What? You say 14 million other sick Americans want in to the Mayo Clinic, all at the same time? Well then, who's going to decide who gets in there first, then? Lord Barack, you say? Ah, I see. . . .
Why didn't McCain respond to Obama's outrageous assertion? He should have said that not only is health care not a right, but we do not want it ever to be considered a right. The reason we have the best health care delivery system in the world is because we have always considered it a commodity--part of the free market. The current problems are largely the result of the government trying to convert it into an entitlement. Now Obama wants to consider it a right. The best thing we can do for health care delivery is keep the government permanently out of it.
The Republicans have been back on their heels for many years on this issue. They're afraid to defend or assert free-market approaches to health care. The left has crept into the henhouse to the extent that we're three-quarters the way to socialized health care: Medicare, Medicaid, government mandates. All that's left for them to do is to kick in the rotted door. Then, we're like Great Britain and Canada. Once again, thanks to the "liberals," we throw out the baby with the bathwater.
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