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.
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.
@ original post.....why on earth did you go into health care then, knowing that it was so time consuming from first hand experience. I understand that you value your time and your family, and I do respect that; because for me family comes first. Just curious I guess.
I freakin love these threads!!! Also, on the bank note, if you cuss, spit, punch, or hurt a bank worker, you will not be going there anymore. If you steal from Wal-Mart, you don't get to go there anymore. When a drug seeking pt stands on the bed screaming the c word, and trying to whip people with EKG leads, and then breaks into a code cart to steal drugs (nothing of which is fun in there), I feel they do not have a right to healthcare and if we booted them out on their butt til they acted like a human being and charged them at the door, took their pocket money, yeah things would be a little different. Eat yourself to 600 lbs? great but you shouldn't get disability if it's not a glandular issue. Healthcare is widely abused. Go to you tube and watch er-pt fakes a seizure.
I agree that healthcare is a right but there should be limits, just like everything else. I have a right to free speech but I cannot walk down the street screaming obscenities, because this is a public disturbance. LIMITS! also, I am a liberal before the liberals start chewing my butt:lol2:
Specializes in Peds/outpatient FP,derm,allergy/private duty.
. . . . .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.
Your parents sacrificed time with your family because they accepted the erroneous notion in the minds of the public that they should be on call 24/7 even though they thought it was bunk? Like, sorry kids, got to miss that school play even though I'm not actually on call because a bunch of strangers think I should be on call 24/7?
Would you work for an indefinate amount of time because a faction of misinformed people think you should?
We've had lots of discussions here about the martyr complex and the all-giving Angel of Mercy archetype that borders on the religious at times, but most people don't feel that way and there is no mandate that anyone accept that notion. Your dad as a neurosurgeon no doubt worked many a weekend, I would imagine TBIs to happen more often then. I'm sure he saved the lives of many people and I hope it's some consolation to you to know that. Being a neurosurgeon as a commodity? I guess so, but would he actually refuse to operate on a bleeder who was uninsured?
Believe me, when I read posts from people maligning doctors as golf-playing over-paid jerks I go at them with a vengeance. I know what the realities actually are. I just don't think a strictly libertarian or free-market system would work. What we have now is a neither entirely one or the other.
Ed. to add: I just assumed your dad was the neuro and your mom the pediatrician, which you didn't specify. Hope I didn't get it wrong.
How can healthcare be a "right" when it hinges on whether or not someone else is willing to provide it? What if there were no doctors, or too few of them to provide healthcare to everyone who wanted it? How would anyone then be able to exercise this supposed right?
I'm reminded of recent high profile circumstances of personal choices conflicting with patient care such as the Katrina nurses and MD's, and the NYC EMT's who allegedly left the dying pregnant woman behind. Was healthcare a commodity in those situations, or was healthcare a right?
How can healthcare be a "right" when it hinges on whether or not someone else is willing to provide it? What if there were no doctors, or too few of them to provide healthcare to everyone who wanted it? How would anyone then be able to exercise this supposed right?
It seems the line of thinking would be that- then those with wealth and greater resources would have access to the limited supply. Those poor..... Not that I'm putting words in the OP's mouth, or that I may or may not be liberal... what else should I disclaim.. (my poor spelling too!)
It seems the line of thinking would be that- then those with wealth and greater resources would have access to the limited supply. Those poor..... Not that I'm putting words in the OP's mouth, or that I may or may not be liberal... what else should I disclaim.. (my poor spelling too!)
I can't speak for the OP, but I had absolutely no thoughts related to those with wealth having greater access to limited resources. I was only thinking about the impossibility of every person being able to exact his or her "right" to health care. But even if that were the case, so what? You can't force people to spend many years in training knocking themselves out and making sacrifices, and keep paying them less and less, just so others can have their "right" to health care.
K nurse-one-day
693 Posts
Jesus! Liberal much?