Medical care is not a right

In a 2008 presidential debate, Barack Obama declared that medical care is a right which every American deserves.

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.

Some answers for Martha...

In this post, Martha C asked some good questions about the economy and how to explain her conservative viewpoints to liberals. Fiscal conservatives and liberals have vastly different points of view, which can make conversations between liberals and conservatives extremely difficult. Adding to the confusion is the fact that liberals and conservatives can say the same words and mean entirely different things.

I am not an economist. I am just a lowly graduate assistant in the computer science department at my university. Still, I think I can address at least a couple of Martha's points.

Most liberals are motivated by a pretty fundamental hatred of/disrespect for "big business" (even little business) -- they mostly grew up being taught that owners of businesses are cold, uncaring, selfish people who are out to rip off as many people as they can, etc. I wonder whether Palin or Scott Brown or others could talk about the fact that there ARE a lot of selfish, greedy, dishonest people in business; and that many of them have hurt others on their way to success. Then they could go on to say, BUT it's also a fact that the success of these people DOES create jobs for others and creates wealth in the community, which in turn provides a bigger tax base, etc. Maybe it could help, too, to throw this in: Every NFL, NBA, NHL, and MLB fan can think of some hot shot player that is totally obnoxious and is earning an obscene amount of money. But they realize that the player brings crowds, wins games, etc., which creates jobs and other good stuff in the community, so they don't talk about trying to get rid of that player (unless the bad behavior is totally extreme). I think this is an honest approach that could work with people. They might even buy the idea that there are just as many fat-cat, dishonest crooks in government as there are in the private sector.

Martha mentions "greed". This is a word that gets casually tossed around a lot in political debates. In an interview with Phil Donahue, Milton Friedman describes greed as "individuals pursuing their separate interests". He also points out that this "greed" is not unique to countries like the U.S., which have capitalist economies. Every nation's economy is based on greed -- it's just a matter of whose greed. At some point, greed became a dirty word. However, greed is what makes our economy work. In order to acquire more money to satisfy my greed, I must serve other people by producing some good or service that somebody else wants.

I also want to address Martha's discussion of "obscene" salaries. I think that Martha was mostly using this word in a tongue-in-cheek way, but there are many people who rail against the "obscene" profits of the insurance industry and other "fat cats" in "big business". (A quick Google search for "obscene profits" will give you some good quotes.)

The use of the phrase "obscene profits" reveals a lot about the underlying attitudes of the speaker. Consider Martha's example of the "obscene" salaries earned by professional athletes. A person who describes athletes' salaries as "obscene" is implicitly saying that he disagrees with the spending habits of millions of fans. Whether you are railing against the "obscene" profits of professional athletes or the "obscene" bonuses of company executives, this is an extremely arrogant attitude. Then again, big government is all about arrogant paternalism.

The whole other side to this that isn't explained well enough (for those of us without economics backgrounds) is WHY government spending on infrastructure projects isn't as helpful to the economy as the same about of money would be in the form of tax cuts.

First of all, infrastructure is necessary for a strong economy. You must be able to get goods from point A to point B. However, I think Martha is referring to the makework projects in the Democrats' "stimulus package". This bill was passed, based on the economic fallacy that spending a bunch of money will produce additional wealth. Politicians with this view would argue that these projects will inject money into the economy, which will be spent, and re-spent, and re-spent....

Anyone who looks at this more closely can see that this makes no sense. This is just a case of politicians (and the people who voted for them) falling for the Broken Window Fallacy. Economist Frederic Bastiat describes a vandal, who throws a brick through the window of a shop. A crowd forms, and instead of becoming angry at the vandal, people in the crowd suggest that the vandal has done a great service. The broken window has provided a job for the glazier, who produces windows. The glazier will use his profits to buy bread from the baker, and so on. However, the people in the crowd have ignored an obvious question: how would the shopkeeper have spent his money if he did not have to buy a new window? He might have used his extra income to buy a new suit from the tailor. After spending money on a window, the shopkeeper cannot afford a new suit, so the tailor is out of a job. In actuality, the vandal did not create any jobs or wealth. The entire economy is poorer by the amount of one window.

In the same way, the "stimulus package" creates jobs in the construction industry, which politicians are all too happy to take credit for. On the other hand, taxation stifles the creation of new jobs in the private sector. This results in highly visible beneficiaries of new construction jobs and invisible victims, who would have been hired had this bill not been passed. Therefore, politicians can take all the credit and receive none of the blame, which is just how they like it.