On Rights and Health Care

What is a "right"?

The Free Legal Dictionary says: In a concrete legal sense, a power, privilege, demand, or claim possessed by a particular person by virtue of law.

In other words, a right is something to which you have a just claim, and it's enforceable by law.

Radio talk show host Neal Boortz wrote:

"Logic cannot support the premise that health care is a right. Health care is a service that is administered by another human being with the requisite skills and knowledge. To claim that health care is a "right" is to claim a right to the services of the health-care provider. In effect, this means you are claiming a "right" to a portion of that person's life – both a portion of the time already spent developing his skills, and a portion of the time spent practicing those skills on you.Only through a mutual agreement, a contract, can one person claim a right to a portion of another person's life. Anything beyond that is either charity or slavery."

Neal failed to mention that the person who uses "free" health care is also claiming a right to a portion of a total stranger's life, just another taxpayer. That stranger who pays confiscatory taxes to finance the knee surgery done on the recipient of the service has been ABUSED by the government on behalf of the person who had the surgery. His property, in the form of insanely high taxes (representing a portion of his life) has been unjustly seized to provide medical care for a total stranger.

To claim that you have a "right" to free health care, means that you are also claiming a "right" to a goodly portion of another person's life. There's no getting around that simple and obscene truth.

There's a reason that I've focused on the morality of the matter. Once the moral principle has been abandoned, the door is open for all matter of misuse, malfeasance, and eventual catastrophic failure. When the principle is abandoned we stop asking "should we even provide national free health care" and begin devising the best and most effective means for doing just that.

The poster Chuck is a smart conservative blogger ( http://chuckthinks.blogspot.com/ ) and a registered nurse. He has probably forgotten more about health care than most of us will ever know. He wrote:

"I don't think right is a good word to use. I think there is maybe a moral obligation to ensure that people do not die of a treatable illness irregardless of ability to pay. It has always been my opinion that we would save money giving people basic health insurance. Anyone who does not think we already have universal health care is fooling themselves. People that do not have insurance wait until they are sick and then go to the Emergency Room (where I work). Their care then costs us considerably more. We pay for this either through government programs or by writing off the cost of the visit. Either way it is using resources."

As an conscientious ER nurse, Chuck has skipped ahead as a matter of practicality and thinks that providing health insurance will save money. I disagree for two reasons. Insurance for the medically indigent will morph out of control for political reasons in no time flat! EVERY Democrat politician--and half the Republicans--will promise to fatten the state provided benefits to buy votes. It's just as predictable as gravity.

By providing the medically indigent with health insurance we've induced the moral hazard. Both the politician who ultimately controls the purse strings, and the non-paying patient have something to gain by gaming the "free" health insurance system.

There MUST be some sort of co-pay involved with walking into the ER for health care that is commensurate with services rendered.

I've only scratched the surface of the socialized debate by focusing on the moral principles involved. In the coming days as this debate heats up it will be ESSENTIAL to remember what's motivating the politicians who are trying to sell you socialized medicine.

Power-Once the politician controls your health care he also controls you. The person who feels indebted to a politician will cast his vote for that same gutter-dwelling scallywag. How do you think a pile of rancid human debris like Ted Kennedy maintains his Senate seat?

A socialized medical system will permanently empower the Democrat Party and will cause a death spiral of our economy into socialism. Nothing less than the future of our country is at stake in this debate.

Where do you stand?