Is healthcare a right or a responsibility?

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Most controversial cases about forced treatment In US are usually about severe mental illness. In the case of infectious diseases I could imagine reasonable forced treatment when there is an emergency situation and other people lives are in danger but can you explain what are you referring to?
 
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I totally agree. However, the kind of selfless care Matthew’s gospel is referring to flows from compassion and charity. His gospel is not a ticket to government run medical care or socialized medicine. Socialism is inherently evil and will not help anyone.

W
 
REPENT said:
This verse is about paying your taxes and obeying the law. This has nothing to do with healthcare being a right or Jesus telling us to form a big government.
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Of course Jesus didn’t explicitly reference a 21st century political question in 1st century Palestine. That’s an unworkable standard. And besides, Catholics don’t believe in sola scriptura anyway.

“We can’t do this because Jesus never specifically endorsed it” isn’t the standard. I mean, Jesus never said we should have a postal service either, but it’s pretty universally agreed that delivering mail is a function the state should perform.
 
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Walk-worthy said:
His gospel is not a ticket to government run medical care or socialized medicine. Socialism is inherently evil and will not help anyone.
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“Inherently evil”? Tell that to the Apostles.
They therefore that received his word, we’re baptized; and there were added in that day about three thousand souls. And they were persevering in the doctrine of the apostles, and in the communication of the breaking of bread, and in prayers. And fear came upon every soul: many wonders also and signs were done by the apostles in Jerusalem, and there was great fear in all. And all they that believed, were together, and had all things common. Their possessions and goods they sold, and divided them to all, according as every one had need.
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Acts 2:41-45.
 
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aroosi said:
I think access to healthcare is a human right, most European countries know that.
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That’s pretty much a universal goal of most of the civilised world. It is codified in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Article 25.​

(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
 
Walk-worthy said:
I totally agree. However, the kind of selfless care Matthew’s gospel is referring to flows from compassion and charity. His gospel is not a ticket to government run medical care or socialized medicine. Socialism is inherently evil and will not help anyone.

W
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Heavens above. People need to get out of their insular attitudes and look around the world. Extremism is for the ignorant. Providing a safety net for the vulnerable is not ‘socialism’. It’s motivated by the common good based on the principle that all people are equal and valuable to the community.
 
To answer the question, I don’t know that I would agree it’s a “right.” However, the state may need to have some role in providing healthcare as a prudential matter.
 
I try to keep a certain degree of flexibility in my political opinions, because I know that I can’t possibly have the right answer to everything, but healthcare is a big exception to that rule. I grew up poor. My sister had chronic asthma and several allergies. We couldn’t afford healthcare.
If she had required hospitalization, we simply wouldn’t have been able to foot the bill. And that’s all there is to it. Fortunately we were pretty good about keeping her safe, but it’s a scary thought. We had no safety net if something went horribly wrong.

The age-old response to this problem I’ve heard is “get a job, pull yourself up by your bootstraps”, and it frankly makes my blood boil. We were trying. But that takes time and money, neither of which were in plentiful supply. My dad eventually got a job and we managed to find ourselves some stable footing, but that was luck. Pure luck. Getting out of poverty isn’t about hard work, it’s about the stars aligning so your hard work pays off. Denying people access to basic healthcare and attaching the risk of a serious amount of debt on top of that is a grave injustice.
This is probably a failing on my part, but I have little patience for people who have never had to worry about how many meals they need to skip this week lecturing poor people about what they do and don’t deserve.
I apologize if this comes off as inflammatory, but I feel very strongly about this.
 
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Unfortunately this is not a given in USA. It is not uncommon for people, uninsured or with complex medical problems, to end up with a huge debt.
 
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aroosi said:
Unfortunately this is not a given in USA. It is not uncommon for people, uninsured or with complex medical problems, to end up with a huge debt.
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And no doubt lives are lost as well, as a direct of indirect consequence of that.

I think that the principle behind the US model needs to be examined more honestly for what it really stems from. I get so annoyed when the offensive charge of socialism is ignorantly applied to the policies of other countries who make that safety net a priority for the sake of the common good. It leads me think that people just don’t know what is socialism and what is the principle of the common good.
 
Good luck changing the mentality in US about this topic. I moved to US from Europe several years ago and I noticed three hot topics that for Europeans are a no brainer but for US (at least in the rural areas and in the South) are taboos:
-universal healthcare access
-restriction of gun rights
-end of death penalty
 
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Wouldn’t that be conditional upon availability?
Thinking about your question, I wish the O.P. had put a bit more ink into discussing terms and parameters, prior to opening the floor for discussion.
Either way, this should be an interesting thread.
May God bless you and all who visit!
Amen.
 
I’m not sure it is viewed as a right, so much as as a social good. Access to various health care services does vary in European countries, and, of course, it also varies in the United States.
Right now, many services are not being made available in Europe as health care delivery is focused especially upon Covid-19, but prior to the awareness of the virus, one might also be in line for many months for certain procedures.
Health care is rationed across countries in different ways. the fact that it is rationed, I would suggest, might indicate that it is not viewed as an absolute right.
 
What you are talking about is due to a limited availability of resources. Yes, in Europe, even before COVID-19, you could wait months to get a non urgent appointment, but I never heard of anybody being denied access to urgent care or to life saving expensive procedures because unable to pay.
 
Godfollower said:
There are sick people on this country who need help and don’t have jobs that provide them with health insurance. As Christians, we have a responsibility to help them. To put it another way, they have a right to our help.
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They make demands upon us and as Christians, we are called to act, in accordance with the will of God. However, these demands, I think are different from a right.
God gives us free will and we must choose how (or whether) to respond to these demands.
I agree that we do have a responsibility to our brothers and sisters. How to carry out that responsibility becomes the question and answers may vary.
 
jeannetherese said:
I’m not sure it is viewed as a right, so much as as a social good. Access to various health care services does vary in European countries, and, of course, it also varies in the United States.
Right now, many services are not being made available in Europe as health care delivery is focused especially upon Covid-19, but prior to the awareness of the virus, one might also be in line for many months for certain procedures.
Health care is rationed across countries in different ways. the fact that it is rationed, I would suggest, might indicate that it is not viewed as an absolute right.
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You’re thinking of non-urgent appointments, in which case the wait time can be (but isn’t always) rather long. However, if you’re, say, in need of a critical surgery or some form of urgent care, you’re given priority attention.
At least to my understanding. I’ve never actually gotten medical care in Europe, so I wouldn’t know exactly how the system works from a patient’s perspective, I’m just basing this off of what I’ve read.
 
That’s correct. You have always the option to go to private practice (=paying) if you don’t want to wait so long for non urgent appointments. Also, in certain areas, they give you appointments in a short time but wherever in the county there is a dr available (so you may end up going 15-20 miles away from your home or to a younger dr). The system is far from perfect but everybody can access the most needed services. Every time I see in US a go fund me page for a cancer patient in debt I cringe.
 
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