Frequently Asked Questions
1. Is health care a right ?
2. If health care is not a right, should it be?
3. Isn't universal health care just socialized medicine? (in preparation)
4. What about individual responsibility? (in preparation)
a. To purchase healh insurance (in preparation)
b. To take care of yourself (in preparation)
5. Are there enough doctors to take care of everyone, if everyone had access to health care? (in preparation)
6. How can rising cost of health care be controlled? (in preparation)
7. How can we pay for universal health care. Can we afford it? (in preparation)
8. What about simply making everyone buy insurance? (in preparation)
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1. Is health care a right?
In the United States, at the present time, the answer is probably and unexpectedly "No." However, the answer is tied up in the question of what constitutes a right.
Ethicists recognize legal rights and natural rights. Legal rights are granted by a legislative body in the form of laws, or are identified as such by interpretations of law by the courts. The controveresial "right" to abortion was identified as such by the Supreme Court, in Roe vs. Wade, by the court's interpretation of the Constitution.
Natural rights are of a purely moral or ethical character, obtained from "nature" or "endowed by (our) Creator", and unable to be modified by legislative authority. Examples are 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights includes the right to health care. That Declaration does not have the force of law, and is not accepted by many in this country. In the absence of general agreement on what is morally right (see section 2, below), and in the absence of a binding Supreme Court decision, it cannot be said that there is a legally recognized natural right to health care in this country.
In every major industrialized nation in the world except the United States there is a recognized legal right of citizens to health care, conferred by national legislative bodies.
2. If health care is not a right, should it be?
For most people viewing this site, the answer to the question is obvious. Simple compassion for the uninsured coupled with the impact of the problems with our present health care system on individuals and on business make it obvious to us that an overhaul of the way health care is made available is overdue. Our major problem is understanding why this viewpoint isn't universally accepted. We forget that many people have a different value system from our own, a thoroughly respectable value system but a value system that leads to different conclusions about what's right
Many support the concept of individual responsibility. It's believed that each individual should be responsible for acquiring the means to obtain whatever products or services they desire, including health care. For those who are truly incapable, minimal basic services can be provided by private charity or by public safety-net welfare programs. For average-income individuals who can no longer afford health care, it is their responsibility to make choices - either a choice to advance themselves so they can afford care, or a choice to reduce other spending such as on rent, transportation, education or other less essential products or services, or simply to do without health care.
Many oppose wealth transfer, especially in the form of progressive taxes. They believe that those who have achieved great wealth should be allowed to keep it, and those who haven't should simply make do. Wealth should not be confiscated by the government simply because tens of millions of individuals are not capable of paying for health care that they might need. In their view it is morally just that society be stratified, richly rewarding the producers.
Many passionately support the concept of freedom, meaning "free exercise of the natural right of sole dominion over their own lives, liberty and property," relegating government to a minimal, custodial role. They specifically reject the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states, "Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services."
They value greatly the entrepreneurial spirit of the private marketplace that brings us wealth-creating insurance company middlemen, and an abundance of expensive technologies that happen to shift the profit/benefit ratios ever upward. To them, private business success has a priority over public social policies.
Don McCanne, in whose quote-of-the-day this analysis appeared ( quote-of-the-day-bounces@mccanne.org, December 31, 2008 ), points out that "Freedom, entrepreneurialism, and individual responsibility are values that are not the exclusive domain of the opponents of single payer, for we all share them. The disagreement is in how we value public policies that make these concepts work for all of us. We need freedom - freedom to chose our health care professionals - a freedom that the insurers have taken away from us. We need entrepreneurialism to provide us with better technology - but technology that meets the test of value. We need to exercise our individual responsibility to take care of ourselves - but along with our responsibility to support public policies that will enhance the health of all of us."
Revised December 31, 2008