More Implications of Our Right to Healthcare

Posted on October 20, 2008
Filed Under A right to healthcare |

Last week, DrRich defended Mr. Obama’s recent declaration that healthcare is a right.  DrRich’s defense was not based on the idea that awarding Americans a right to healthcare is inherently a proper and necessary thing to do, or that a right to healthcare is one of those natural, God-given rights we Americans used to celebrate (like life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness), but rather, that the sovereign authority (i.e., that authority within any society which has the ultimate capacity to force its will by the exertion of violence) can declare anything they wish to be a right. So if Mr. Obama (presumptive President-elect, and soon-to-be wielder of sovereign authority) says healthcare is a right, then it’s a right.

DrRich understands, of course, that our Constitution in its very first paragraph awards sovereignty to “We the People,” and that the rest of the document goes on to specify the limits of governmental authority, and that those limits are most specifically spelled out in the Bill of Rights (which actually does not award rights to the people, the rights of the people being granted by “nature,” but instead explicitly lays out a few of the limits on the government’s ability to intrude on God-given individual sovereignty).

But DrRich has also been taught, by the unambiguous verbiage of our political leaders and by decades of observation of actual governmental actions, that the Constitution is a “living document,” which means that the government may grow its authority as needed in order to deal with perceived social (or financial) crises, or political exigencies.

Simply put, the responsibility for American healthcare, being both a social crisis and a political exigency, certainly fits as one of those items that heretofore has fallen to individuals, but that the government may now choose to take upon itself without violating any really important precedent.

And indeed, it has so been declared.

To his fellow conservative Americans, DrRich wishes to assure that really, this is not such an extraordinary step as many seem to think.

DrRich has heard it said, by those who disparage healthcare as a right, that this is a dangerous step, that, if the government awards Americans a right to healthcare, then what’s to stop the government from also awarding them a right to food, clothing, and shelter (the lack of which would pose a much more dire problem to the vast majority of people than a mere lack of healthcare)?

To which DrRich replies: Where have you been for the past two months?  The housing crisis, the near collapse of our financial markets, and the extraordinary taxpayer bailout that will burden our progeny down through the generations, all amount merely to partial payment for the decision by our duly-elected representatives (and the policies and actions that naturally derive from that decision) that all Americans should have access to an affordable mortgage (or, for that matter, mortgages). That is, we are simply getting a first look at the bill that is coming due thanks to a government-declared right to a house.  And when we are finished, it appears, our government will own the actual mortgages, the government-backed entities (Fannie and Freddie) that support the mortgages, and even large chunks of the banks themselves that do the original lending (several of which, last week, were forced against their will - in a graphic demonstration of the definition of sovereignty - to accept a federal buy-in of their institutions).

So be soothed. The right to healthcare is simply a natural extension of the already extant idea that the government should supply (and control, and therefore, own) all the necessities of life.

There’s a lot to learn from studying societies in which governments have taken on this role. Several such societies have risen (and fallen) just over the past century.  We who worry about the cost of healthcare perhaps can take solace in the fact that, in all of these societies, the notion of “healthcare” quickly came to be seen as the extravagant luxury it has been throughout most of human history, rather than a fundamental necessity.  People enduring famine and exposure (or, at best, inanition) have relatively low expectations regarding healthcare.

In other words, as we look at the real implications of the recent taxpayer bailout of our financial system (engineered by a Republican administration), and at the fact that we are about to elect a Democrat President whose stated aim is to spread the wealth around, a right to healthcare actually becomes a relatively unimportant consideration. Socialism invariably reduces the people’s expectations to the point where it should become relatively easy to pay for our new right to healthcare. So, not to worry.

Comments

6 Responses to “More Implications of Our Right to Healthcare”

  1. James on October 20th, 2008 3:49 pm

    Gauranteeing a right to health care is not socialism. We’re still a long way from that. But, as we clearly see, there are some services that the government must control in order to prevent disasters - like the one we have in health care right now. Imagine if things like roads, poilce and fire depts were left to private enterprise. If your community can afford it, you can if law enforcement. If not, you’re out of luck. I think healthcare should be viewed the same way. It is a service that is clearly necessary and one that the private sector has clearly failed to provide effectively.

  2. DrRich on October 21st, 2008 1:37 pm

    James,

    I agree that guaranteeing access to healthcare does not necessarily have to be socialistic. I will even write soon about what such a guarantee might look like. My point is that our current level of concern about healthcare can be considered a luxury, a side effect of a robust, free-enterprise economy, where the standard of living of the population is extraordinarily high. Based on what our current administration has done, plus what our likely next administration says it will do, that concern may become diminished (in favor of more pressing concerns).

    Rich

  3. Nick on October 21st, 2008 9:00 pm

    Dr Rich,

    I don’t think anyone could have done a better job of putting into words some of my greatest fears about our country’s future while still making me chuckle.

    Nick

  4. Dan on October 22nd, 2008 9:22 am

    Implicit in the arguments supporting the concept of a right to health care is a medical version of the Miranda warning given to individuals being arrested: if you cannot afford a doctor, one will be appointed for you. Then we run headlong into the problem of quality of care being provided those without the means to pay for Mayo Clinic style health care. All of the sudden the the right to health care takes on an expanded defintion, one that isn’t supposed to have limits of cost or duration. The conventional wisdom holds that the evil minions of private insurance companies will do everything in their power to limit utiliztion in the name of profit. What you have pointed out in your book and blog is that government sponsored health care is just as if not more likely to set limits–ration–health care. It just will stop being covert.

  5. DrRich on October 22nd, 2008 10:35 pm

    Dan,

    Actually, the government is quite good at covert rationing, perhaps better than the insurance companies (which tend to be pretty ham-handed about it). The government generally couches its covert rationing activities in terms of increasing efficiencies, rooting out fraud and abuse, promulgating “guidelines,” and directing and interpreting medical research - every one of these functions, obviously, being carried out for the good of American healthcare and American patients.

    To doctors, the major difference is that it is possible to challenge insurance companies without risking much more than non-payment of a few medical services, or (at worst) being thrown off an HMO panel. Doctors who challenge the feds, however, risk losing their careers, their life savings, and their freedom.

    Rich

  6. Red Baron on October 24th, 2008 2:29 pm

    Well said

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