Obama Is Wrong To Declare Healthcare A Right
In spite of the overwhelming economic challenges we face as a nation, President Obama seems determined to push forward with a massive overhaul of our healthcare system. The countless trillions in unfunded future obligations for Social Security and Medicare that already threaten to bankrupt future generations of Americans are apparently not sufficient to deter the creation of what will certainly become the costliest government run entitlement program in human history. Just as President Roosevelt used the crisis of the Great Depression as political cover for the passage of the Social Security Act, President Obama and the Democrats seem determined to use the current crisis to effectively nationalize the largest sector of the U.S. economy.
Even as a dyed in the wool free market capitalist, I am fully prepared to admit that our current system is badly broken. The cost of healthcare services continues to rise much faster than the rate of inflation, and there are far too many people for whom coverage is either unaffordable or completely unobtainable. Most Americans agree that it is not acceptable for anyone to be deprived of basic medical care in the most prosperous nation in the world. Where we disagree is on the reforms necessary to solve the problem.
Our current healthcare system has massive implications for our future role in the global economy. As the sad plight of the Big Three automakers clearly illustrates, American companies are going to find it increasingly difficult to compete as long they are saddled with the crushing burden of employee healthcare costs. Since we are the only major industrialized nation without some form of government run healthcare, it is only a matter of time until our employers find this burden to be unbearable.
There is no question that significant reforms are needed, but there is widespread disagreement as to how we go about designing a system that provides adequate coverage for everyone, without creating tax obligations that will stifle future economic growth, and without a complete government takeover of the largest sector of our economy. Perhaps more so than with any previous government policy, healthcare reform requires vigorous open debate based on reason and reality. A nationalized health service will fundamentally alter the nature of our economy and our democracy forever.
For decades, those in favor of a government run system have spoken of healthcare as a basic human right. Our President is among those who have publicly stated their belief in this right to healthcare. Unfortunately, it is simply not possible to hold a rational debate over a policy reform of this magnitude when our starting point is a flawed assumption. The delivery of healthcare services to those in need is an absolute necessity, both on an individual and a societal basis. The aggregate economic impact of failing to provide these services is staggering, and we must take this cost into consideration as we consider our reform options. What we must not do is succumb to the foolish notion that we have a right to healthcare, or that such a right can even exist.
Our founding fathers had a clear understanding of the inherent nature of rights, and of the fundamental difference between rights and entitlements. They understood that the pursuit of happiness was an individual quest, and that the outcome was not guaranteed. They recognized that by exercising our rights to freedom of expression, or religion, no cost or burden is imposed on any other individual or group. When we declare that healthcare is a right, however, we automatically create a corresponding obligation for someone else to provide it. Under such conditions, a right cannot exist.
It has been said that the hardest thing to kill is a government program. Not since the passage of the Social Security Act in 1937 has a reform proposal had the potential to reshape our lives and our economy as dramatically as nationalized healthcare. Reform is probably inevitable, but we must demand that it come about in the light of day. We cannot allow any program to be crafted in the same manner as the economic stimulus package that no one read until it was too late. If we tolerate the passage of a poorly conceived partisan plan, thrown together in haste to take advantage of a narrow window of political opportunity, we will suffer the consequences for generations to come.
Related Posts On Healthcare Reform
Revisiting The Oregon Plan: The Future Of Healthcare In America?
It’s amazing that you equate access to healthcare to the persuit of happiness. I don’t think the founding fathers meant that at all.
Your argument is just insane, really. We have employers in this country who want to pay their employees as little as possible — they even ship those jobs overseas in order to get payroll costs down. And you expect millions of already exploited workers in this country to pony up non-existent money for health care because it’s a priviledge?? You’re just plain evil.
Since it’s obvious you’re heartless and miserly, then how about looking at the situation this way: A healthy population equates strong national security.
What really needs to happen in this country is for us to remove the middle man: Insurance companies. Why purpose do they really serve? Why the hell should we all be forced to give them money for being nothing other than a clearing house?
But, hey, you’re all about “free market economics” (BTW, there is no such thing) which means you’re all about screwing over everybody else for the sake of the Almighty Dollar.
You suck.
Surfer Girl,
Thanks for your enlightened contribution to the discussion. It’s obvious from your comments that you didn’t read the post very clearly, or that you failed to comprehend what I was saying. I absolutely agree that proving healthcare to those currently without is an urgent national priority. The fact that healthcare is a necessity, however, does not mean that we have a right to force someone else to provide it.
If you had bothered to read any of the related posts, you would see that I also advocate getting rid of traditional health insurance. If we agree on that point, maybe we both suck!
SurferGirl… a right is something all can enjoy without taking something else from another. If health care is a right, then we are all entitled to the services of others without question. Is that what you believe?
In the past I worked for a small insurance brokerage firm here in Roanoke and although they sold health, dental, and life insurance, coverage was not available to me through my employer. Even a limited health policy (through Anthem) for a single person (no dental included) would have taken a large chunk of my salary, and that was for a healthy, non-smoker. Out of my reach. No wonder so many people have to rely on Charity Care and other resources which are currently stretched thin. And while I don’t expect anyone else to pay for my medical care, there are a lot of heartbreaking stories out there regarding people who have disregarded their own need for treatment in order to provide for their children and put food on the table. I have been lucky enough to enjoy excellent health and have not needed much in the way of help.
I don’t know what the answer is, but if there is one I feel that this administration will be able to find it.
What the hell does “taking health care services from another” mean? Aren’t we “taking services” from the fire department when they come put out a fire?? I suppose you want to charge for that too, and that you think no one has the right to have a fire extinguished, huh?
Doctors will always get paid. Hospitals will always get equipment that’s needed. Every single hospital in a particular region doesn’t need to have all the latest and greatest equipment. They shouldn’t be in competition with each other. Doctors don’t even make that much any more in this country unless they specialize. It’s just insurance companies and hospitals that are raking in the big bucks. On the backs of sick people, no less. It’s totally screwed up.
And wasn’t the whole point of health insurance initially to cover accidents and not just general health care? Now we’ve been trained to be a nation of people who run to the doctor every chance we get out of concerns for “wellness.” It’s become a commodity with a consumer and a supplier. An English friend told me once that Americans would never be able to escape this paradigm of free market health care.
And to the author of this blog post: Isn’t it better to force something through, no matter how well or how poorly thought out. We can no longer afford to suffer from analysis paralysis over this issue!!
Chris, et al,
Healthcare absolutely should be a right. I’m not going to call you evil, I didn’t get that feeling from your post. However, I must say your critique sounds eerily similar to many other conservative opinions. That is ‘what’s being proposed is wrong’ but no alternate idea, just a lot of rhetoric.
Insurance companies, however are evil.
If healthcare is not to be a right, then it is only an option that you admit is expensive, flawed, and so on. When you turn 65 I want to know if you sign up for Medicare (betcha’ you do), because the costs are over the top already. You’re a hypocrite. Go shrug on someone else’s Atlas.
How is it moral to make fortunes off of people who are dying, Mr. Healthcare genius?
Scott,
I’ve never suggested that I had the answer. The fact is that healthcare is one of the most complex social and economic issues facing our country. Coming to a consensus on any reform proposal will be challenging, but unless we hold an honest and open public debate on the subject, we will never have the answer. This is simply too important to be left up to back room deal making by partisan hacks. Look at what the politicians from both parties have done to our banking system. Do we really want them in charge of our healthcare as well?
A public debate isn’t the answer. See how far public debate has gotten us in regards to abortion or gay marriage? When GM is going bankrupt due in large part to its health insurance costs, when Starbucks is spending more to insure its employees’ health than it does on coffee, and there’s no “debate” going on, it’s time to try something, anything. I’d bet all the industrialized countries that have various forms of regulated health care didn’t debate it to death first. They just DID something.
When GM is going bankrupt due in large part to its health insurance costs
Health Insurance costs are not the leading cause of the failure of the US auto industry… it’s hyper demanding Unions who demand while refusing to concede anything even if it could kill their jobs outright. They have priced their labor out of the reasonable pay market and are now feeling the heat yet denying any involvement.
Healthcare is not a right… you don’t have a right to vote, drive a car, own a home or get a heart transplant… the rights you DO hold are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, they are rights to action, not access to rewards from others. Those rights require no obligation from another party… just yourself.
The right to life and the pursuit of happiness do not mean that the government has the right to take my income, to apply it to feeding, clothing or maintaining my neighbor.
Think of it this way… a right is something a government can ensure a citizen without having to tax that individual or anyone else to provide it. You have the RIGHT to free speech, you can speak your mind in any way possible and it costs you and the government nothing.
That’s all the biggest bunch of hooey I’ve ever heard, James. GM itself has said that health insurance costs have contributed to its pending demise. Besides, you put up a straw man argument to get a chance to bitch about unions, completely neglecting the Starbuck’s issue. Go up and read one of my earlier posts, where I comment on what a fire department does. Your taxes pay for that and those jerks go and fight a fire at an apartment building full of slackers who can’t bother themselves to work hard enough to own a home, and I bet that burns your ass something fierce, huh?
Get a clue, people: if you want to live amongst others, then you’ve got to bear the burden of taking care of each other. If you don’t want to do that, then go live on a mountaintop somewhere, and plow your own damn dirt road when you get snowed in, put out your own damn fires, don’t have an address where you can get mail. Just be your own damn island.
Fire and Police are SERVICES not RIGHTS
Why is K-12 education a right and not primary health care? Both have societal benefits when treated as a public good.
Who said public education was a right? You’re pulling resources from the people to provide a service, exactly the same way one pays for services such as fire and police.
Patrix,
As James pointed out in the previous comment, there is a difference between a government service and a right. Government services are not guaranteed to us, and their availability varies widely depending on where you happen to live. Our friend Surfer Girl seems fixated on Police and Fire protection, but ask anyone living in a rural area if they believe they have a right to the services of a volunteer fire department. Anyone who has ever attempted to sue a police department for failure to protect them from crime has been told by the courts that we have no right to be protected from harm. Public education is just another government service. If there were a right to education, no child could ever be expelled from school.
Let’s not argue semantics. Rights/Services…who cares? My beef is with people who take advantage of these services and then bitch when other people want and/or need to as well. Besides, the vast majority of our taxes go for military defense. That’s a service if there ever was one! But I bet you anti-single-payer-health-care people wouldn’t want that service to go away.
It’s shameful that we’re a world leader and we don’t take care of our own population as well as other industrialized countries do. It’s even more shameful that we’d all rather do nothing as the problem reaches a crisis stage.
Those of us who are currently insured pay for the cost of the uninsured going to emergency rooms when their health care issues that could have been addressed early reach a stage where they have to go to the hospital.
Isn’t it just more sensible to spend our tax dollars in the most prudent way possible? Seems to me, safeguarding the health of the citizenry by providing basic health coverage would be a wiser use of taxes than our “star wars” type defense industry that’s really a black hole into which millions of dollars disappear on a regular basis.
correction: I meant BILLIONS of dollars. [channeling Carl Sagan]
Reports of Canadians fleeing their “wonderful” healthcare system to be treated in the US…
British citizens so in need of dental care they resort to pulling their own teeth…
Citizens in need of BASIC preventative care, put on waiting lists months, if not YEARS long…
I’m glad we’re aspiring to something… wouldn’t want to one up our allies.
Okay, I’ve read your entire post and you talk a lot about the healthcare system being broken and issues with government without suggesting any solutions. Seems a bit lame to me.
The bottom line is that the US has one of the worst healthcare systems of all the developed countries. Healthcare charities which were originally set up to work in 3rd word countries are now based in the US to help there because of the rapidly growing number of people in this country who have no access to proper healthcare and in some cases even FOOD.
Any country which speaks about the basuc human rights of it’s citizens yet has the kind of divide between rich and destitute that the US has right now is pretty screwed up.
At least Obama is trying to get something done about this and that is vital for the US, because no other country will continue to respect a country which cannot take care of its own people.
What has failed in this discussion is the definition of liberty and how it can be applied.
I present the following: to say that healthcare is a right, and not a service provided to those in need, is to enslave the providers (doctor’s, nurses, etc.). In the case of government run healthcare, the service provider is a slave to the state.
The definition of liberty applied to this example would follow: “Nobody has the right to the services of any professional individual or group simply because he wants them and desperately needs them. The very fact that he needs these services so desperately is the proof that he had better respect the freedom, the integrity, and the rights of the people who provide them. ” from Leonard Peikoff Town Hall discussion titled Healthcare is not a right
http://www.bdt.com/pages/Peikoff.html
Dr. Bill,
If you will read my earlier post, I think you will find that I am in complete agreement with Leonard Peikoff on the issue of liberty.
http://chrisberryonthe.net/2008/03/25/healthcare-is-not-a-right/
Chris, you are correct, and I did not refer back to your post last year, my apologies. It is great that you have such a diverse group of people reading your blog. I am new to your blog and have enjoyed some of your comments. Keep it up. I only chose to point out that some of the replies have been from people ignoring the definition of liberty, something that conservatives have always stood for …Scott!
Patrix: On the topic of business/education: imagine a business where only 50% of the products manufactured pass final inspection: Roanoke City Schools.
Dr. Bill,
Thanks for joining the conversation. I would be very curious to hear your take on these older posts as well.
http://chrisberryonthe.net/2008/09/08/revisiting-the-oregon-plan-the-future-of-healthcare-in-america/
http://chrisberryonthe.net/2008/11/12/what-if-no-one-had-health-insurance/
??–”What we must not do is succumb to the foolish notion that we have a right to healthcare, or that such a right can even exist.”
wow. do you actually believe it’s foolish for a society to distribute basic medical information and care to citizens for the benefit of their health? even if you succeed in your odd semantic quest to prove that healthcare is not a right by definition, human beings in societies have already agreed that it is beneficial to the whole to provide basic preventative care for each other. like providing clean water for each other, etc.. i find this article fairly pointless and delete-able, unlike your excellent arguments at –>
http://chrisberryonthe.net/2008/11/12/what-if-no-one-had-health-insurance/