Health care a right or privilege

Overland1, RN · Apr 4, 2012

Health care is (despite the rantings of the media) neither a right nor a privilege; it is a commodity that is guaranteed to nobody. The Constitution does not provide for it. On the other hand, the term "healthcare" has increasingly become (in the media) a reference to health insurance... a totally different animal. The discussion of both has become so politicized and misrepresented by the media that most folks have been seriously and effectively misled, but, what the heck, it gains votes for somebody.

Now, include that in any paper for any Nursing classes and be promptly shown the exit.

lindarn · Apr 4, 2012

Than how is it, that all children, (even unfortunately, illegal alien children who do not belong here), are entitled to a FREE PUBLIC EDUCATION??

Why is a free public education a right? Because it is considered that an educated public benefits everyone! Doesn't a healthy public also benefit society as a whole?

There is nothing in the constitution that guarantees, or speaks about providing free education to the masses. But it is provided for as a social benefit to all.

My tax dollars pay for FREE public education, K-12, for illegal immigrant children. Why? These same illegal immigrants also get free healthcare, on my tax dollars. Again, I ask, WHY?

No one ever died because they could not to long division or diagram a sentence. But American ctizens are dying because they do not have access to healthcare.

Why do you not protest that assault on your tax dollars by illegal aliens, but only protest American Citizans guaranteed health care?

It never ceases to amaze me, how Americans are so easily led and manipulated, by the PTB in the insurance industry, and the power brokers, who are perfectly content to maintain their financial status quo.

JMHO and my NY $0.02.

Lindarn, RN, BSN, CCRN

Somewhere in the PACNW

jmqphd · Apr 5, 2012

This is not an issue of American health care. This is an issue of humanity. We humans have evolved to the point where health care should no longer be a privilege, but a right. It's a necessity, just as much as food, clothing, or shelter is.

Dear Kandy... you make the point better than I could. If health care is a right, then so must be food, and clothing, and housing. If that is true, then I am not entitled to better health care than you. And you should not be eating better than I. If you live in a 2 bedroom walk-up apartment, then I have no moral right to a 3 bedroom 2 bath home of my own. And... btw... if you can't afford to fill your 15 gallon tank with 4$/gallon gas, then I should have my gas money pinched so you can. I bought a new lab coat two weeks ago. When did you buy your last set of scrubs? Is that fair? Do you have a Littman Cardiology II? How can you say you are egalitarian when I am forced to get by with a plain old (and I do mean old) basic Littman.

You may in fact need the full package of ACA provisions including contraception. I haven't ovulated in 20 years and I do not. However, in the interest of fairness, I must have the same insurance as you. I don't have minor children, but I will pay just as if I did because we must all have the same "access".

When you make the grand claim that everyone has the basic human right to material goods, and when you empower the central government to rule over the distribution of those goods, you don't live in a developed first world country any longer. You live in a very, very, very large Cuba.

brainkandy87 · Apr 5, 2012

This is not an issue of American health care. This is an issue of humanity. We humans have evolved to the point where health care should no longer be a privilege, but a right. It's a necessity, just as much as food, clothing, or shelter is.

Dear Kandy... you make the point better than I could. If health care is a right, then so must be food, and clothing, and housing. If that is true, then I am not entitled to better health care than you. And you should not be eating better than I. If you live in a 2 bedroom walk-up apartment, then I have no moral right to a 3 bedroom 2 bath home of my own. And... btw... if you can't afford to fill your 15 gallon tank with 4$/gallon gas, then I should have my gas money pinched so you can. I bought a new lab coat two weeks ago. When did you buy your last set of scrubs? Is that fair? Do you have a Littman Cardiology II? How can you say you are egalitarian when I am forced to get by with a plain old (and I do mean old) basic Littman.
You may in fact need the full package of ACA provisions including contraception. I haven't ovulated in 20 years and I do not. However, in the interest of fairness, I must have the same insurance as you. I don't have minor children, but I will pay just as if I did because we must all have the same "access".
When you make the grand claim that everyone has the basic human right to material goods, and when you empower the central government to rule over the distribution of those goods, you don't live in a developed first world country any longer. You live in a very, very, very large Cuba.

Wow. Your logic is so asinine I'm not even sure I can dissect it's properly. Instead of going on a rant about how you somehow put words in my mouth by assuming I believe we should live in a Communist state where no one can have a better car or a better house or a better (insert whateverthehell you like), I'll just simply say this: it's fairly obvious that universal healthcare leads to Communism and it destroys first world countries. I mean, just look at Canada, Germany, France, the UK, Switzerland, and on and on. Terrible, disgusting third world states, they are!

Seriously, there's a big difference between believing everyone deserves equal access to health care and whatever it was you were trying to accuse me of advocating.

stablesystole · Apr 5, 2012

Healtcare is delivered by people who have dedicated their time and effort. If you think you have a right to that time and effort without paying for it, then you are saying you have a right to labor without compensation. This is an extremely short step away from slavery.

Oh, but someone elses taxes pay for it? Well, unless that someone else has concented to it you're really just saying that borderline slavery is okay when its paid for by borderline theft.

The only way this sort of exchange could ever be equitable is if you were expected to surrender certain rights or priveliges in order to recieve uncompensated care.

Just because our system might say that something is legal, does not mean that it is moral.

Woodenpug, BSN · Apr 5, 2012

Let's take a different approach. What if health care was a licensed privilege. You would need to take a course and pass boards, then maintain that license by getting regular physicals, CEU's, vaccinations..etc. Background checks of course, and it would probably be necessary to carry malpractice insurance as a licensed health care consumer.

jmqphd · Apr 6, 2012

This is not an issue of American health care. This is an issue of humanity. We humans have evolved to the point where health care should no longer be a privilege, but a right. It's a necessity, just as much as food, clothing, or shelter is.

OK... let me try to break it down for you. From the late 20th C forward there has been a lot of attention given to equality. This equality has been understood in the context of "Civil Rights" now expanded to "Human Rights". When the border of "rights" and equality has been pushed forward, it has required exact (for lack of a better word) "sameness" of each right to each human or citizen. Public schools were desegregated, but there were still inequalities, so wide-spread, court-inforced busing was required. Eventually, with regard to race, disparities were blamed upon historical discrimination, so we have come to accept affirmative action as a way to do penance as a people, thereby achieving justice. All of this was imposed by a government as a means to promote equality of rights.

In the last 50 years, we've seen an avalanche of government action to create some sort of cosmic fairness... a fairness that is never defined. The minimum wage is never enough... because it's never fair. Men advance in the military on the basis of war-zone billets... so women must serve at the front line or it's not "fair." Our prison population is disproportionately minority which is clearly NOT "fair". Something must be unjust about that and as soon as the government figures out what it is, we'll see a proportionate percentage of felons from each race and nationality behind bars.

Similarly, in the ACA, each American must have the same insurance, even though this makes no sense at all. We cannot risk the fact that one American would have a benefit that another does not. Because it wouldn't be "fair."

That is what equality of "rights" in the world of centralized political power is all about. It doesn't have to make sense, Kandy... it is just how it works.

YOU were the one who said food and shelter are rights, just like health care. Apply the methods of the Affordable Care Act to these commodities. Same insurance for you and me? Similarly, same food as well. And if you and I must have identical policies to provide equal access... then you and I should have the same square footage to live in. Health care, food, shelter, clothing... it's all the same. It's all about justice and equality.

I agree with you. This is completely asinine. But this is how it is done. As soon as you turn a necessity into a right, you create a moral imperative for fairness, equality, justice and sameness of that right to all people. Whenever that has occurred in any culture, it has required forced redistribution.

Welcome to Cuba, amigo. (Didn't Michael Moore tell us the best health care is in Havana? Made a whole movie about it. Why do you think I'm so far off base? I think the facts are on my side.)

Woodenpug, BSN · Apr 6, 2012

I have a need for 21% oxygen atmosphere. If that's turned into a right, will everyone get room air oxygen? To be fair those who need 25% or more should be cut off. Really, the "reductio ad absurdum" has been overplayed on AN.com and for that matter this thread.

joanna73, BSN, RN · Apr 6, 2012

IMO, health care is a right. Everyone should be entitled to basic health care, without having to sacrifice other needs in order to attain it. I'm Canadian, and thankfully our healthcare system is built around this philosophy. All Canadians receive universal health care, paid through taxes. We all have a health card which covers all basic services and surgical procedures. I don't worry about the expense of becoming ill. The American health care system is completely foreign to me.

jmqphd · Apr 6, 2012

I have a need for 21% oxygen atmosphere. If that's turned into a right, will everyone get room air oxygen? To be fair those who need 25% or more should be cut off. Really, the "reductio ad absurdum" has been overplayed on AN.com and for that matter this thread.

It is absurd, Woodenpug. But there is no "reductio" about it. I don't know if your O2 is going to be cut off... but watch out. The environmental lobby would be pleased if you'd let your kidneys make more HCO3 so you could exhale less CO2. (That is satire. It is reductio absurdum. But the other stuff I related... well... it's history.)

CompleteUnknown · Apr 6, 2012

Obviously it's up to each country to decide how their own systems work but I think those of us who live and work in places where there is universal coverage find many of the arguments against it quite puzzling. I don't work for free and I don't consider a person who needs more health care than I do to be 'stealing' from me. It never enters my head to think that Mrs Jones down the road with a need for surgery or a chronic illness is getting more out of the system than I am. I'm treated when I need it and if I don't need it very often, well then I am very lucky.

jmqphd · Apr 6, 2012

I would love Universal health care. I could retire! The only reason I'm working is to have health insurance. I love my dogs and I'd be out training every day and most weekends, I could be off running an AKC hunt-test or field trial. Wow. That would be great.

As long as you can PROMISE me there would be no rationing, I could have whatever doctor I want, and he and I could have any care, medicine or tests we thought was necessary. Excluding of course, cosmetic stuff.

Very honestly, I have two artificial knees. I don't know how long those things last. But if in 20 years I need to have new ones put in... I don't want anyone telling me I'm too old.

But for the non-US members here... we do have an obstacle in the form of our Constitution. If we are going to have Universal Health Care, it has to be able to pass Constitutional muster, and the way the Congress went about this Affordable Care Act was dubious on many fronts. A lot of smart people say that a truly Universal Care, with single payer, would be Constitutional. But politically, the Democrats did not think they could get it passed. So they came up with a hybrid approach that satisfies very few.