You heard me, healthcare is a commodity, not a right.
I'm writing this post because there are comments made every days about how "the problem with modern health care is the fact that it's treated like a commodity, not a right," and various other statements to the same effect.
A commodity is a good or a service that is exchanged for money. Examples are food, housing, cars, cute shoes, and healthcare. All of these things require scarce resources combined with labor (another scarce resource) to produce the final good.
My time is scarce, and people do not have a "right" to it. Same goes for doctors. My parents (pediatrician and neurosurgeon) sacrificed time with their family because of the attitude that as doctors they have a responsibility to society to be on call 24/7. Their roles as physicians fulfilled other peoples' "right" to healthcare, while their children were raised by babysitters.
This attitude ends with me -- my top priorities are my family and myself. The hospital/patients are a distant 3rd and 4th. No one has a right to healthcare. I don't have a right to healthcare. If I want to seek out and purchase healthcare, then I can based on my right to freely associate with other individuals. But no person has any God-given right to my time or expertise or that of any other healthcare worker.
To assert that healthcare is a right is to advocate for slavery. No thanks.
I would have thought that access to Healthcare is a right? Especially in a First World Country. I'm glad in the knowledge that if I am sick here I can see a doctor (and I can either pay a higher amount or go to someone who bulk bills and not have to pay out any extra).
But then I'm from Australia and we have a different healthcare system to America.
Education is a commodity. You didn't have a "right" to nursing school, did you? Just because the government provides public education, does not make it a right. Just because something is good does not make it a right.
The "one phone call rule" is a convention of the criminal justice system, not a "right" asserted by any philosophical doctrine.
The right to practice one's religion is essentially the right not to be forced to practice someone else's. I don't need a priest to help me pray.
My thoughts on voting...well, that's a discussion for another day, suffice it to day that voting is not a natural right asserted by philosophical doctrines either, it is a political tool meant to pacify the masses.
Although I've dealt with enough PITA patients--just recently, in fact--to appreciate the sentiment, I believe the OP is confounding the issue. A patient's right to healthcare does not equal my obligation to provide limitless care to anyone who wants it. My obligation is to the patients under my care for 12 hours at a time. My facility has the obligation to provide care to anyone who arrives in need of it (we're a state hospital). And the position that people have a right to healthcare is that society has an obligation to make it available to anyone. While any of these opinions is debatable, my personal obligation is the only one that applies to me directly, and it is one I have undertaken of my own free will.
As a voter and a taxpayer, I do have a right to have my views heard as to whether there is a societal obligation to provide healthcare. I happen to believe there is, but that view is certainly debatable, and has been debated at rather some length.
I've seen too much of it too recently to dispute that there are those whose sense of entitlement goes beyond all reason. I have been, on occassion, a nurse whose sense of duty, to my patients, my profession, my facility, and my co-workers goes a bit beyond what I am strictly being paid for. I support the OP in her commitment to balance her sense of duty to her work with other duties that are at least as important. If I felt nursing required me to neglect the care of my cats, I'd have to find another line of work.
But for twelve hours a night, three nights a week, I do see healthcare as something more than a commodity, or even a service. I love my stupid job, and while it sometimes is a stupid job, it's my stupid job, and that makes it important.
It's been years, and I'm not a huge fan. I did, however, enjoy Mozart was a Red.
Ok, to break it down to basics: there are not enough resources to provide healthcare to everyone to the extent that they want or need. If something does not exist, how can it be a right?
Surely others here took econ and/or civics back in high school? Healthcare as a right negates economic law!
Specializes in Peds/outpatient FP,derm,allergy/private duty.
As someone who is descended from slaves (and not that long ago either!), I disagree. Thanks.
Agree, Sharon. Though I can be irreverent about a lot of things, there are analogies that are still too emotionally charged to be used. This is one.
Petite-- I am curious about what you think is a right? The term is vague enough to be used in the context of law, politics (where a right is always defined as something the other guy will take away from you), philosophy, and religion. It's hard to discuss an issue when there is not a common understanding of what the word specifically is defined as.
Your description of voting as a means of "pacifying the masses" implies it is akin to the Bolshevik idea that religion is the "opium of the masses". In short, not a means of empowerment as it is when done without corrupt interference, but a sham exercise to keep the oligarchy (or "oligarh" if you are Glenn Beck:p) in power. It isn't perfect, but is there a better framework for "by the people" you would replace it with?
Original post is a classical example of selfishness that is being elevated to the point of virtue in this country. It is not controversial to say that one believes healthcare is a commodity: that is the point that both Republicans (and some Democrats) as well as better part of conventional media promote every single day. To say that healthcare is commodity implies that if one is not well-to-do enough, one is free to die, even if treatment is available. To me, that is not a world I want to live in, but a savage utopia ultra-rich conservatives are propounding, and to many people are falling for, not understanding it is not in their best interest. PetiteOpRN assumes that she will always have healthcare, will not fall on hard times, and that this is somehow proof of her virtue. Well, OK, anyone is entitled in to their opinion. To assert, though, that advocating for a healthcare as a right is "to advocate for slavery" is a willful ignorance of someone who doesn't understand (and doesn't care to understand) what is slavery, what is commodity and what is basic decency.
It's been years, and I'm not a huge fan. I did, however, enjoy Mozart was a Red.
Ok, to break it down to basics: there are not enough resources to provide healthcare to everyone to the extent that they want or need. If something does not exist, how can it be a right?
Surely others here took econ and/or civics back in high school? Healthcare as a right negates economic law!
There are some in our society who recognize higher laws than the Law of Supply and Demand. It's entirely acceptable that not everyone can afford a Bentley. Indeed, it makes some sense that a Bentley is a reward one can aspire to for exceptional accomplishment, while others of us are free to direct our energies in another way and drive a Ford.
But not all goods are luxuries, and where necessities are in limited supply, it may serve society better that not all are apportioned according to means. If the poor are to be denied healthcare so the rich can buy all they want, the poor really need to think long and hard whether the rich are strictly necessary. The rich become rich within a set of social structures and rules. The society which created those structures has the right to amend those structures and rules to promote the greater good. Somewhere in time, we made the choice that I can't beat up Bill Gates and take over Microsoft. That was a good choice, but it was a choice, and not a natural law. There are those who would assert that Gates has more right to liposuction than I do to heart surgery, because he can afford it. But that premise is only possible if we accept the assumption that the law of supply and demand is more just than the law of the jungle. That assumption doesn't seem tenable if the law of supply and demand is wielded as though it were the law of the jungle.
I'm not saying Communism works. I am saying that wealth and privilege are not evidence of God's favor, but a benefit of living in a particular social order which exists by the consent of the masses. If that order is to deny basic necessities to the masses, it's time to eat the rich and establish a new order.
I've still got some youthful idealism that hasn't been beat out of me yet.
sassy_squirrel
76 Posts
I would have thought that access to Healthcare is a right? Especially in a First World Country. I'm glad in the knowledge that if I am sick here I can see a doctor (and I can either pay a higher amount or go to someone who bulk bills and not have to pay out any extra).
But then I'm from Australia and we have a different healthcare system to America.