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Thread: What Does It Mean to Have a 'Right' to Health Care?

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    What Does It Mean to Have a 'Right' to Health Care?

    Health care and insurance is not a right. The opening of the following article explains why.

    What Does It Mean to Have a 'Right' to Health Care?

    ...We live in a world of scarcity, which is to say that at any moment our ends surpass the available means to achieve them. We can't have everything now. Thus we have to choose among alternatives. It is obvious that the human race has pushed back the limits of scarcity, but that is the result of human ingenuity sufficiently free to solve problems, or what Julian Simon called "the ultimate resource." Nevertheless, right now we cannot have all we want, so we have to make choices. A quantity of a resource or a unit of labor services cannot be put to more than one purpose at a time. Making choices entails opportunity costs—the benefit we forgo by choosing alternative A over alternative B instead.

    Despite the popular misconception, health care is not beyond economic law; it is not a free good that falls like manna from heaven. It has to be produced, which means people must mix their scarce labor with scarce resources to produce the things used to perform the medical services we want. It would be foolish to expect them to donate their labor and resources because other people need them. They have their own lives to live and livelihoods to earn. It would be wrong to compel them. They are not slaves.

    In other words, no one can have a right to medical care or insurance, that is, to the labor services and resources of other people—including the taxpayers. We hear a great deal about the need to respect all people; well, respecting people must include respecting their liberty and justly acquired possessions. Without that, "respect" is hollow.

    ...Natural rights—which boil down to the single right not to be aggressed against—require only that one abstain from aggression. Thus all can exercise their rights at once without conflict. On the other hand, government-invented "rights"—such as the right to medical care—cannot be exercised at the same time; the potential for conflict is built in. For example, a person cannot use his own money as he wishes if the government health care system takes it by force through taxation to pay for other people's services....

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    If ya can afford it.

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    There is no right to health care. There is no right to take something from one to give to another. Personally, I believe that we have a moral responsibility take care of those that cannot do so for themselves. I understand that you don't all agree. A society is judged on how it treats its most vulnerable -- it's youngest, elderly and it's poorest. I try to do my part. I'm sure that I fail miserably but I try.
    Any time you give a man something he doesn't earn, you cheapen him. Our kids earn what they get, and that includes respect. -- Woody Hayes​

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    Quote Originally Posted by DGUtley View Post
    There is no right to health care. There is no right to take something from one to give to another. Personally, I believe that we have a moral responsibility take care of those that cannot do so for themselves. I understand that you don't all agree. A society is judged on how it treats its most vulnerable -- it's youngest, elderly and it's poorest. I try to do my part. I'm sure that I fail miserably but I try.
    Your quote is frequently used to justify the government's plundering of one group of people for the benefit of another group of people. It is evil to its core.
    Call your state legislators and insist they approve the Article V convention of States to propose amendments.


    I pledge allegiance to the Constitution as written and understood by this nation's founders, and to the Republic it created, an indivisible union of sovereign States, with liberty and justice for all.

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    Quote Originally Posted by DGUtley View Post
    There is no right to health care. There is no right to take something from one to give to another. Personally, I believe that we have a moral responsibility take care of those that cannot do so for themselves. I understand that you don't all agree. A society is judged on how it treats its most vulnerable -- it's youngest, elderly and it's poorest. I try to do my part. I'm sure that I fail miserably but I try.

    Agree, and well put. Hayek would agree, from The Constitution of Liberty:

    "We shall again take for granted the availability of a system of public relief which provides a uniform minimum for all instances of proved need, so that no member of the community need be in want of food or shelter."

    But I'm sure i agree with him here:

    "Once it becomes the recognized duty of the public to provide for the extreme needs of old age, unemployment, sickness, etc., irrespective of whether the individual could and ought to have made provision themselves, and particularly once help is assured to such an extent that it is apt to reduce individuals’ efforts, it seems an obvious corollary to compel hazards of life."

    I still distinguish between those who who could and those who could not.

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    Quote Originally Posted by MisterVeritis View Post
    Your quote is frequently used to justify the government's plundering of one group of people for the benefit of another group of people. It is evil to its core.
    Let them die in agony if it might cost you a few cents to treat them.
    News: Rich people paying rich people to tell middle class people to blame poor people.

    They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Dangermouse View Post
    Let them die in agony if it might cost you a few cents to treat them.
    If you believe it is important use your wealth.
    Call your state legislators and insist they approve the Article V convention of States to propose amendments.


    I pledge allegiance to the Constitution as written and understood by this nation's founders, and to the Republic it created, an indivisible union of sovereign States, with liberty and justice for all.

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    It is not a right, but as a society we can provide. I think we should. I can't imagine a 10 year kid with Crohns disease not having access to something that would give them a chance at a good and long life because we are fighting over this stuff. If we didn't figure this out I couldn't look at myself in the mirror.

    Figure it out for God's sake.

    There are many things that deserve a fight but this isn't on on them!

    I didn't like Obamacare because it was poorly put together and we were lied to all along the way. The evidence is indisputable. He had a chance to really make something work by having all the cards, but he allowed the idiots to get involved (inexperience). He/the party rammed it down peoples throat rather than doing it right and here we are now.
    I am tired of everyone fighting with each other. This is all by design.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Dangermouse View Post
    Let them die in agony if it might cost you a few cents to treat them.


    I'm not impressed by your appeal to emotion. If such a thing were really to happen, wouldn't it have been your refusal to part with your few cents as well which caused their death?

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    Quote Originally Posted by texan View Post
    It is not a right, but as a society we can provide. I think we should. I can't imagine a 10 year kid with Crohns disease not having access to something that would give them a chance at a good and long life because we are fighting over this stuff. If we didn't figure this out I couldn't look at myself in the mirror.

    Figure it out for God's sake.

    There are many things that deserve a fight but this isn't on on them!

    I didn't like Obamacare because it was poorly put together and we were lied to all along the way. The evidence is indisputable. He had a chance to really make something work by having all the cards and not playing smart. He/the party rammed it down peoples throat rather than doing it right and here we are now.
    Once you accept the state has an obligation to plunder others on your behalf the state will decline and fall. No one has a higher moral call to the wealth you create than you do. By making it the state's purpose to take wealth from one person to give it to another you have sown the seeds of that nation's destruction.

    The purpose of a Constitution is to limit a government's authority. Sadly, we no longer have a Constitution to protect us.
    Call your state legislators and insist they approve the Article V convention of States to propose amendments.


    I pledge allegiance to the Constitution as written and understood by this nation's founders, and to the Republic it created, an indivisible union of sovereign States, with liberty and justice for all.

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