The 'right' to health care

I'll keep this short ....

There isn't one.

You do not have a 'right' to health care ... it is not the government's JOB to provide health care. I will grant you that legislating that a doctor or hospital can not deny health care based on race or religious beliefs would be reasonable, but I believe that is already covered under existing laws.

Why isn't there a 'right' to health care ... because it is an individual responsibility. You are responsible for your own health care. For there to be a 'right' to health care then you as an individual (or us as a collective group) would have to have the ability to claim a 'right' to a portion of someone else's life. You (or we) would have to be able to say to a doctor 'you must spend your time to treat me.'

Time is the ultimate resource ... that is to say it is completely irreplaceable. If you claim a right to that doctor's time, you are claiming a right to a resource that they absolutely can not replace, ever. True ... you may only use a half hour this month, and another half hour a few more months later ... but you see ... if YOU have a 'right' to his time, so does everyone else. And ultimately that means that everyone has a 'right' to his time except the doctor.

The flip side is ... if the government has the power to claim the time of one person or profession (health care providers) then they have the power to claim the time of all people. That means a right to Electricians, Plumbers, Salespeople, and you.

'It can not be considered a right if someone else has to pay for it.' - Ayn Rand

One of the reasons that health care costs are so high, and also the reason that many emergency rooms are struggling lately is the cost of caring for those that don't have insurance and can't pay for the services. This causes two things to happen ... first, the hospital has to charge the other patients a higher price to cover the patients that can't pay (of course this has the ripple effect of causing more people to be unable to pay); and secondly, the hospital needs to get funds from the government to make up the difference.

Medical care is not free folks ... like any other business they have expenses. When you go see your doctor you are paying his salary, the nurses salary, the receptionist's salary, the electric bill, phone bill, water bill, office supply costs, equipment costs, etc. Admittedly you're only paying a percentage, but that is what you're paying for ... and remember that those salaries there are to reimburse those people for the TIME that they spend on the job. By claiming a 'right' to health care you are saying that you own that time and shouldn't have to pay for it ... it is your right.

There is no 'right to health care' listed in the Constitution or Bill of Rights ... heck originally health care was taken care of completely by individuals ... then at some point, businesses competing for employees came up with the idea of including health care insurance as part of the benefits of the job as a means of attracting more and better employees (and/or paying employees less due to the money saved by coving their health care.) ... so what happened?

Those people that didn't get the jobs with the benifits ... who didn't want to take less money or who just didn't want to work harder to achieve that level of value to an employer cried 'foul' and eventually someone in government said 'hey ... you know ... I can get a lot of votes if I say that I'll make these big companies give their employees health benifits.' And sure enough ... they did ... and they passed a law saying that companies larger than X had to provide health coverage to all full time employees ... and then eventually the expanded on that ... and expanded on it again.

Until now ... you have a large portion of the population that believe that it is the employer's responsibility to GIVE them health coverage ... it's not their responsibility at all; it is something that is supposed to be given to them. And since it's something that should be given to everyone, why shouldn't it be the government that does the giving?

No ... in fact if government had stayed OUT of the equation all together we would probably have a lot better health system than we do already.....

Medicare and Medicaid ... the current government run health systems ... is that REALLY what you want in health care? Can anyone name one thing that the government does efficiently? All studies show that private market solutions with minimal or no governmental regulations produce cheaper, more efficient solutions ... and yet the people of this country seem more than happy to just throw more money at the government so they can get free health care....

On the one hand I want it to happen so that when it does go to hell I can sit back and say 'I told you' ... on the other hand I don't want to be here to deal with it....