Is Health Care a Right? Conservativessay no, Progressives say yes. What is a right, what is a privilege?This is the basic question. Conservatives like to say 'Rights' arenot granted by a government; government may only protect Rights given by G-d. Progressives see rights as evolving along with our consciousness; arch of the universe bending toward justice and all that. That this debate goes to the essence of the ideological split on the nature of political rights themselves. The ideological split is why the often stated ideal of compromise and 'bi partisanship' is so elusive; it is NOT merely a matter of 'partisan ship'. The division is real. Despite the 'inalienable'nature of Rights, conservatives often say granting who is subject to such 'Rights” is the realm of the legislature. This is contradictory to the idea that Rights are granted by G-d. If something is a 'Right' independent of Human activity it cannot be subject to a plebiscite of the majority. Obviously asking the Majority if Minorities can have Rights is problematic but is is the essence of pure Majoritarianism, which is why our Founders were opposed to what they saw as excessive democracy. I have not heard this argument recently but people like Rand Paul have claimed that a 'Right' to health care basically 'enslaves' ( yes he used that terminology)health care providers ( i.e. MD's) as they would be 'bound' by an obligation to provide such care and therefore would not be truly free(?????!!!!???). I know it is hard to follow, but I do fail to see why this is different than the role of Police and courts in a Right to own Property. Is not a Judge 'enslaved' by my demand that she prosecute someone who stole my car? All the arguments in favor of leaving people to their own devices on health care apply to owning property also. Without an authority of some sort to help one keep their property one is left with the Law of Nature,where in you keep what you physically can keep. I would think a good conservative would rely on their guns and dogs instead of a 'Nanny State' to keep their property safe. That would be consistent with their demand that healthcare be treated as any other service provided by a private citizen for a profit. The Right to health care,recognized an every country that has a a health care system except the USA, is something not dreamed of by the writers of the US Constitution because the state of health care was then quite bad.Germs had not been discovered and bleeding of patients was common.Upper class people often died from injuries the poor might survive precisely because the health care generally harmed the patient. In this day of daily medical miracles access to health care cannot be so heavily rationed by price as it is in the USA. Nowhere is there a free market where that would lead to any of the market's vaunted 'better service for a better price' competition pressure. Prof Krugman showed that the main competition in the insurance market is to get premiums from healthy people and never, ever keep expensive,un healthy people around if it can be avoided. Recently there was a case of a local fire company letting a house ( Tennessee maybe?) burn because the owners had not kept up their firefighting dues, or something like that. Lack of payment basically. This might seem fair to some but the same argument could be used as to why I do not want to pay for the portion of the local roads budget that goes to someone else's house, for instance. Since the health of others directly affects all of us (contagion!) it is hard for me to see how health care isn't at least a community responsibility not to be born by individuals alone. Just as we do not task each individual with keeping invaders out, thieves deterred and persons safe in transit we must realize health care is one of the responsibilities we need of any government we establish among ourselves. I look forward to a libertarian person to explain why a right to own property is deserving of government assistance but health care is not a similar right deserving of governmental support. Both are meaningless without reinforcement from the society at large. Tom Cuddy Austin
