Well, I think it should be a right for every American. In a country as wealthy as ours, for us to have people who are going bankrupt because they can't pay their medical bills -- for my mother to die of cancer at the age of 53 and have to spend the last months of her life in the hospital room arguing with insurance companies because they're saying that this may be a pre-existing condition and they don't have to pay her treatment, there's something fundamentally wrong about that.
In this article, Walter Williams exposes this notion for the nonsense that it is. Rights are traditionally understood to be things which one person is entitled to do which do not impose any obligation on another person, other than non-interference. In other words, my right to free speech does not diminish your rights. My right to assemble with other like-minded people does not diminish your right to do so or impose any other obligations on you.
Now, consider the "right" to medical care. In order to extend this "right" to people who cannot afford it, the federal government must pay the doctors and hospitals for their services. Contrary to popular belief, the government has no money of its own. Therefore, the government must coerce citizens -- through threats of imprisonment -- into paying for the medical care of everyone else through taxes.
Like Obama and other proponents of this bill, I wish that everyone could afford medical care. I wish that everyone could have a Corvette. I wish that everyone's every desire could be fulfilled. However, a wish is not the same as a right. We must deal with reality. People like Obama who insist that health care is a right which everyone deserves sound like insolent little brats who just want a PONY and want it NOW!!!
Now, I will address some other nonsense which politicians (including President Obama) casually toss around with impunity. Many people (including Obama in the above quote) seem to think that there is something wrong with insurance companies denying coverage for or refusing to pay for preexisting conditions. Maybe in Obama's wonderful world of free lunches and unicorns that poop Skittles, insurance companies could pay for this. However, we live in reality.
Insurance companies exist to make a profit. They are paid insurance premiums by their customers, and in exchange, they assume the risk that the customer will need medical care. Sick people are obviously a greater risk to the insurance company than healthy people, and if they are allowed to purchase a policy, they will probably pay higher insurance rates. This is no different from people with a poor driving record paying higher rates for auto insurance. Buying a health insurance policy after you are sick or injured would be like buying an auto insurance policy after you get into an accident. Insurance companies are not charities.
2 comments:
Some Dude, I don't agree with your ideals. The conservative movement is very much pro-life but when it comes to medical access to all you balk at the very notion. I have submitted these two articles to counterattack your discusion. I think medical access is a right.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/34586.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/18/opinion/18kristof.html
Island Boy, those articles do not counterattack my discussion at all. They discuss only the need for reform in US medical care. They do not discuss whether medical care is a right or if the federal government has the constitutional authority to do the things that it does.
Regarding being pro-life and anti-Obamacare, these issues are linked in my mind, but not in the way that you suggest. It all comes down to property rights. In US states, murder is illegal because it violates a person's ownership rights over himself. (Yes, I believe that killing an unborn child constitutes murder, since that unborn child is a person. The child may be developing inside the mother's womb, but that does not mean that the child "belongs" to the mother and that she can do whatever she likes with him.) (I also have religious reasons for opposing abortion, but let's stick with property rights for now.)
One major issue I have with Obamacare also centers around property rights. Theft is theft, no matter who commits it. Whether it is done on the street by an angry mob or by the IRS on behalf of an angry mob, the fact remains that people are forced to serve the purposes of others through taxation.
It's unfortunate that many people struggle with medical bills, and someday after I graduate and earn more than a master's stipend, I may decide to donate to charities. "Decide" is the key word here. I want to be the one who gets to decide how much I donate and who will receive it. Under Obamacare, the federal government would get my tax dollars, regardless of how those funds are (mis)managed.
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