Saturday, August 1, 2009

The "right" to healthcare is immoral

The “Right” To Healthcare is Immoral

Freedom of religion, freedom of speech, the right to assemble, the right to bear arms, a free press… These are just some of the inalienable rights that are endowed to us by “our creator” and are enshrined in that most glorious of documents, the U.S. Constitution.

Today, our wise leaders are proposing a new “right”, the “right” to universal healthcare. After all, they argue, why should people go without healthcare? In a country that is so rich and powerful, how is that so many people have “slipped through the cracks”? There’s no denying that our current system is unsustainable and is a mess.
What the advocates of universal healthcare fail to recognize, however, is that unlike the inalienable rights I have listed above, the “right” to healthcare is a service, provided by people. It is not religion, or speech, or some basic liberty ingrained in human nature and quintessential to the existence of a free human mind. It is a service, provided by men (and women). It is provided by doctors, nurses, therapists, and countless thousands of other professional practitioners.

By declaring healthcare to be a “right”, our government is in reality allowing one citizen to place a claim over the life and productive output of his fellow citizens. No true “right” can be granted to one citizen at the expense of another. If I choose to be a Catholic, I am not taking away another person’s right to be a Buddhist. If the government chooses to make healthcare a “right”, it is taking away a physician’s right to choose who he will treat, how he will treat them, and the price he can charge for his service. How long can we expect doctors to serve as sacrificial animals to others before they seek out other professions in which they will be free to operate as they so choose and as is their right?

Assigning healthcare as a “right” is setting a dangerous precedent for this country. It is establishing as the law of the land that some individuals (i.e. healthcare providers) rights are to be sacrificed to the greater need of others (i.e. those that “need” healthcare). In this kind of system, no person’s rights are above being sacrificed to those who are in “need”, and all should be wary of being caught on the wrong side of a mob whose “needs” society judges to be more pressing than their own.

July 16th, 2009

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