I’m into it with my beloved cousin, again. He writes, in relevant part:
we are not talking property or labor here Brett….what we are talking about is simple LIFE, LIBERTY and the pursuit of HAPPINESS. This is the right of every person walking the earth and is God Given. Problem is for the LIFE part you need Healthcare. Every other industrial nation in the world gets this except us.
I reply:
We *are* talking about property and labor, though, Josh. Your “right to life” means that government can’t arbitrarily take your life, i.e., murder you. It doesn’t mean that government is obligated to provide you with all the necessities of life, like food and clothing and shelter and, yes, healthcare. Those things are, as important as they are to human existence, commodities. They don’t grow on trees. Someone, for example, invests capital into becoming a doctor and setting up a medical practice. There is no political magic wand you can wave that gets around that reality. So when you say healthcare is a “human right” what you are really saying is that somebody else should be forced to provide you with healthcare — either the doctor himself, or taxpayers.
Yes I am saying that my country absolutely is obligated to do that! Bret, we already do and in a much much much more expensive way! We pay when they go to the ER and can’t pay for it. We pay for that with our taxes and our premiums. So why not offer them preventative care at a lower cost and take care of our citizens? The Constitution also does not state that corporate interests have the right to make life or death decisions regarding citizens of the United States. People who constantly try to throw the Constitution into the argument regarding modern complex issues either have no better ideas or no real argument for their cause. I still have not heard one person explain why it is BAD for government to help a sick citizen but OKAY for a corporation to refuse to cover them and allow them to die.
Let’s unpack that, a little at a time.
“Yes I am saying that my country absolutely is obligated to do that!” But that’s the thing, Josh — it’s not “your country” that’s going to foot the bill. Sure, the check might be drawn on the U.S. treasury, but the actual greenbacks come from other people. So, again: you are saying that someone else, some other person, should be forced to provide you with healthcare. That’s quite a controversial proposition given the American ethos of self-reliance and self-sufficiency.
“Bret, we already do and in a much much much more expensive way! We pay when they go to the ER and can’t pay for it. We pay for that with our taxes and our premiums.” Nobody’s defending the U.S. healthcare system as a model of efficiency, but it’s only true that “we all already pay” because emergency rooms are required by law to treat anybody who walks in the door (nobody is compelled to pay higher insurance premiums resulting from indigent care, since nobody — at least for now — is compelled to buy medical insurance). So repeal the law; using emergency rooms as primary care facilities for the indigent is an exercise in forcing a square peg into a round hole anyway.
“So why not offer them preventative care at a lower cost and take care of our citizens?” Preventative care doesn’t save money. Making preventative care available to everybody as part of a healthcare reform bill will actually raise costs, not lower them.
“The Constitution also does not state that corporate interests have the right to make life or death decisions regarding citizens of the United States.” Quite so. This is because the Constitution is a charter for a national government and not some loopy anti-corporate manifesto. The Constitution is concerned with what government may and may not do, not with what citizens and corporations (who are really just associations of citizens) may and may not do. A medical insurance company’s right to pay or not pay a claim derives from a voluntary contract between it and the policyholder.
“People who constantly try to throw the Constitution into the argument regarding modern complex issues either have no better ideas or no real argument for their cause.” Er. You were the one who brought it up, my friend.
“I still have not heard one person explain why it is BAD for government to help a sick citizen but OKAY for a corporation to refuse to cover them and allow them to die.” Let me take a stab at it, then.
- It’s not inherently bad for government to help a sick citizen. It only becomes bad when government does so by infringing on the personal or economic freedoms of other citizens, as by saddling them with mandates and taxes. A point I’ve made over and over again here is that socializing (in the spreading-it-around sense) injustice is not the same as redressing it. Some injustices, like chronic illnesses, simply cannot be redressed. Life sometimes simply drops a crap sandwich on your plate. Forcing the rest of us to take a bite doesn’t change the taste.
- It’s okay for a medical insurance company to refuse to cover a citizen because medical insurance companies aren’t charities. The owners of a medical insurance company have made a capital investment in the company; the company’s board and managers, in turn, have a legal obligation to conduct the business in a way that maximizes the value of that investment. Given the nature of insurance (any insurance, not just medical insurance), it’s frequently the case that refusing to cover a high-risk consumer is a more financially prudent course.
I hope that helps.