Healthcare Is a Right If the Authority Says It Is

Posted on October 14, 2008
Filed Under A right to healthcare, General Rationing Issues |

DrRich has been traveling, so he is late to comment on the presidential debate last week in which our presumptive next President declared that healthcare is a right for all Americans. (In contrast, Mr. McCain said healthcare is merely a responsibility, but since he’s only a Senator we can safely discount his opinion on the matter.)

Medical bloggers far more notable than DrRich have since provided commentary on whether healthcare ought really to be called a right.  DrRich particularly recommends posts by Shadowfax and Maggie Mahar, both of whom offer beautifully nuanced arguments which are singularly interesting in that, while both of them are American progressives who favor both universal healthcare and Mr. Obama, neither is quite willing to label healthcare a right.  Presumably, when awarded too (as it were) liberally, the granting of new “rights” raises the hackles of too many people. Rather, after much analysis and thought, they prefer to call healthcare either an entitlement (Shadofax) or a moral obligation (Ms. Mahar).

DrRich, being a relatively conservative American, does not do well with such nuances.  In his simplistic, Palin-esque way of seeing things, nuances (even when he is too thick to follow them) are fine if they draw meaningful distinctions. But they are not so fine when they are invoked chiefly to disguise or confuse.

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy says that a right is an entitlement to perform certain actions or to be in certain states, or an entitlement that others perform certain actions or to be in certain states. In other words, a right is simply an entitlement, or an obligation imposed on others, or both.  So, when some insist on calling healthcare an entitlement or an obligation instead of a right, they are merely engaging in soothing obfuscation.

DrRich is sorry to say that the common argument that conservatives like to use against creating a “right” to healthcare - that there is no such thing as a right that imposes obligations or limitations on the individual rights of others - is mistaken.  This is easy to see when one considers certain of the rights that have been legally promulgated during the course of human history, such as the exceptional rights of the aristocracy (especially the divine rights of kings), the unique rights of the clergy, or the special rights of the politburo (or the Congress), all of which clearly imposed more-or-less oppressive obligations on, and limited the individual rights of, the masses.

Where we conservatives tend to get confused is by the notion of natural rights, such as those natural rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness enumerated in our Declaration of Independence. Natural rights are equal rights granted to all people by the Creator (or by “nature”), and cannot be legitimately modified by any mere governmental authority.

Conservatives tend to forget that there is also such a thing as legal rights, which are man-made, created by legislation (or decree, depending on the governmental structure), are not necessarily equally distributed to all people, and are subject to amendment and modification at any time.  In many cases governments will find that, for the overall benefit of the society, or of some subset of society (or even of the governing class), a new “right” will be necessary that produces a limitation on the freedoms or property of individuals within that society, and that those limitations are often not equally distributed.  The progressive income tax, eminent domain, and the military draft immediately come to mind, all of which have been used in countless ways to support innumerable legal rights the government has granted to some or all Americans.

So, DrRich’s message to his progressive friends is: Don’t sweat the “healthcare is a right” kerfuffle. The now-nearly-official right to healthcare is not fundamentally different from other obligations and entitlements that the government has granted to or imposed on American citizens over the years, particularly over the past 70 years.  There is plenty of precedent for it, which should be immediately obvious even to many of us conservatives once you take a second to explain it to us.

So, now that President-Nearly-Elect Obama has decreed it to be so, just go ahead and use the “R” word, and save your nuances for other times when they might be more necessary.


Comments

2 Responses to “Healthcare Is a Right If the Authority Says It Is”

  1. Annie on October 15th, 2008 4:25 pm

    My brain always hurts when I try to clarify my thoughts about this.

    I keep revisiting the many definitions of health and the conceptual models of health.

    Where are the delimiters?

    Are they predicated on having nutritious food (is that a separate right/entitlement/obligation?), safe shelter from the elements (same parenthetical questions), clean potable water and sewage/sanitation, etc.?

    What constitutes health? Absence of disease? Functional definition which leans toward societal role productivity? Self-perception? Provider/patient health definition agreement?

    If I ever figure this out, then I’ll try to determine a working definition of health CARE, and then whether care, goods and services fall into a category of inherent right, moral obligation, etc., etc.

    But for right now, steaming in the sludge of this debate which doesn’t seem to be satisfactorily providing advancement of moving health care ahead, may I suggest that we simply focus on addressing preventable morbidity and mortality by the simplest and most direct means possible?

    Because I think this gets to the nub of the immediate and longer range needs while not having to stew in the juices of ethics and politics while allowing the fresh meat to rot, so to speak.

    Or am I ignoring the horse and the open barn door?

  2. L-E on October 19th, 2008 5:29 pm

    Many people assume that this “right” will include the newest and most expensive medical advancements that they have heard promoted in the media. I hear this often in the front lines of the “health care safety net.” Rationally, providing such a right is economically impossible. However, it is nearly impossible to get open agreement on where to draw the line. Hence, I imagine covert rationing will reign far into the future.

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