Is it a right or privledge or freedom?

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In this country we have the right to bear arms.
In this country we have the right to worship God as we wish.

The government doesn’t force everybody to own a gun. They do not fine you if you don’t own one. They don’t make you pay for somebody else to have a gun.

The government doesn’t force everybody to worship God. They don’t fine you if you don’t worship God. They don’t make you pay for other people’s place of worship (unless of course you worship Washington D.C.)

So if owning health insurance is a right why is the government forcing us to buy it and pay for others to have insurance. Don’t say that everybody should have health care because the present legislation doesn’t address that. As a matter of fact before present legislation, at least in our area, you could not be turned down for medical care at a hospital e.r… So if this is being forced on every american citizen what is it. It can’t be a right we have always had the right to have health insurance.

Seems like a huge overstep of authority on the governments part. Especially given the opposite treatment of most of the other rights we have. Those rights are not forced upon us.

Venting and curious.
 
TARRAT; said:
It’s too late and I’m too tired to adequately address most of your post, but I have to point out that emergency-room treatment of a medical crisis is NOT health care, which encompasses regular check-ups and preventative care as well as various on-going treatment for long-term illness.
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What about car insurance? That’s very similar.

The right to health care is also not synonymous with the right to not receive healthcare.
The whole individual mandate thing (which I hate, being not so old) was rejected under the power to regulate commerce (what they originally used to justify it) but was upheld as a tax. It is an excise, and unlike some other taxes which could be considered merely punishment, is evenly laid.

The rights you mention are rather simple rights. They don’t require any activity on the part of the State to maintain. Something like the right to clean water (which I don’t think is considered a right strangely) requires a framework (infrastructure) to maintain. Healthcare is obviously the later.
 
From an outsider, your health system appears presently to be a mish mash of history. Some, the majority are insured through employment, government or military pension. Others, the very poor are covered by medi-aid.{Sorry if the term is not right.). There is legislation that prevents hospitals turning away emergency room admissions. However this leads to a considerable number of the population without an adequate guarantee of an every increasingly expensive care.Our travel health insurance from Australia has a premium on anyone visiting the States for this very reason.

Now what is happening in the US is to socialise medical care on the same lines as in Europe and Australia. But as can be seen from the Australian experience the socialist model leads to over servicing and a catch up culture of ever increasing mediocrity in public health facilities, leading to the growth in private insurance and Catholic and other private hospitals to the well-off. This leads to tax rebates for those taking out private insurance to off-set their reliance on any public service.

Similarly the UK socialised health system is at breaking point and the ever increasing burden on the taxpayers is felt right through the economy.

In Australia we are now introducing a national Disability scheme, which is founded on the laudable intentions of caring for our long term disabled. However as it is government inspired it will be crippled by inadequate funding, imprecise definition, and inefficient bureaucracy for its initiation, as well as being beset by political bickering.

Very similar to your American plight.
This is not a question of rights but of reasoned responsibility.
To what extent does a society take responsibility for the individual health of its citizens?
When a government takes that responsibility from an individual, a family or a charitable NGO, it will have a cost ,both to individual freedom of choice and responsibility, but may lead, as in the UK, to Orwellian decisions of life and death, such as a universal “right” to Abortion and Euthanasia.
 
In rights talk, there’s two different sorts of rights that should be separated - positive rights and negative rights. A positive right is a right for someone else to do something for me. So for example, children have a right to receive care from their parents. A negative right is a right to not have someone else do something to me. So an adult has freedom of religion - this means you have a right to not be interfered with in your practice.

The rights you mentioned are negative rights. They’re rights to not have the government interfere in certain areas. Your right to bear arms is fundamentally a right to not have your weapons taken away from you.

Something like health care, if it is a right, would be a positive right. It’s a right to have someone do something for you, namely, allow you access to health care. Things like a right to food and water would fall into this category. They are positive rights, where if someone has extra food and you don’t have any (through no fault of your own) they should give you some.

As a practical matter, it’s most likely more expensive to guarantee emergency care only than to guarantee normal health care. With our current system, many poor people wait until it’s an emergency before seeking care, because they can’t afford care. This leads to a lot of emergencies requiring expensive treatment that could have been quite simply treated earlier.
 
The whole issue of health care in the US has been “spun” by politicians and their ilk to the extent that it is all but impossible to find what the true facts are.
The one true fact of the matter is that Medical Doctors in the USA, through their “trade organization” the AMA has a monopoly on medical care in the USA.
The problem starts with the Medical Schools in American Universities, that not only restrict admission to their institutions, but charge much more for a Medical Degree, than for any other Degree at their institution. The combined tuition, fees, books, etc. at many Medical Schools in the USA approaches One Million Dollars!!!
This leaves most young doctors up to their eyeballs in debt. Because of this debt, many hospitals, at least those in New York City, have to pay their interns $75,000 a year just so they can keep up with the payments of their student loans.
I defy anyone to show me any other Academic Discipline where their new graduates make that much money!
There are many ways for government to remedy this. Unfortunately, the American Medical Association is one of the richest and most powerful lobbying groups in Washington, DC, and dispenses millions of dollars to Congressional and Senatorial candidates campaign funds in each election cycle. Thus our “honest” legislatures have no incentive to break the back of this monopoly.
 
ManOnFire said:
To be fair to the parallel of the new health insurance, you’d still be forced to pay for the car even if you didn’t want to own one.
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Not exactly. My point was that people without cars aren’t at much risk for causing car accidents (and thus needing auto insurance). However we can’t choose not to have health problems. A car isn’t something you need - health care is.
 
DarkLight said:
Not exactly. My point was that people without cars aren’t at much risk for causing car accidents (and thus needing auto insurance). However we can’t choose not to have health problems. A car isn’t something you need - health care is.
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Yes you can live without a car and most of us choose to have health insurance. Yet many young, healthy people have always opted out of and still opt out of having any health insurance and feel that for the first time in American history they are being forced to buy something they don’t need.
 
DarkLight said:
Not exactly. My point was that people without cars aren’t at much risk for causing car accidents (and thus needing auto insurance). However we can’t choose not to have health problems. A car isn’t something you need - health care is.
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Technically, healthcare is an artificial extension of life. You don’t “need” it if you choose to live 100% naturally. People also think they need a cell phone and entertainment. You could choose to live 100% naturally by taking no medicines and choosing to receive no health care whatsoever, but that’s highly improbable, just like never driving a car.
 
Education is a right, and everyone who pays to live somewhere pays taxes to support public education, even those who never spend a day in a public school nor have children who do.

However, as a society we all benefit by having an educated population, as we all do by having a healthy one.
 
George_Stegmeir said:
The whole issue of health care in the US has been “spun” by politicians and their ilk to the extent that it is all but impossible to find what the true facts are.
The one true fact of the matter is that Medical Doctors in the USA, through their “trade organization” the AMA has a monopoly on medical care in the USA.
The problem starts with the Medical Schools in American Universities, that not only restrict admission to their institutions, but charge much more for a Medical Degree, than for any other Degree at their institution. The combined tuition, fees, books, etc. at many Medical Schools in the USA approaches One Million Dollars!!!
This leaves most young doctors up to their eyeballs in debt. Because of this debt, many hospitals, at least those in New York City, have to pay their interns $75,000 a year just so they can keep up with the payments of their student loans.
I defy anyone to show me any other Academic Discipline where their new graduates make that much money!
There are many ways for government to remedy this. Unfortunately, the American Medical Association is one of the richest and most powerful lobbying groups in Washington, DC, and dispenses millions of dollars to Congressional and Senatorial candidates campaign funds in each election cycle. Thus our “honest” legislatures have no incentive to break the back of this monopoly.

If we would have socialized the cell phone, entertainment and clothing industries, people would have plenty of money for monthly payments to buy health insurance. They too have powerful lobbies and they own the air waves, so don’t expect much progress there. We have our priorities backwards. Entertainment is fun, healthcare is not. That’s the only difference.
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ManOnFire said:
Technically, healthcare is an artificial extension of life. You don’t “need” it if you choose to live 100% naturally. People also think they need a cell phone and entertainment. You could choose to live 100% naturally by taking no medicines and choosing to receive no health care whatsoever, but that’s highly improbable, just like never driving a car.
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The point is - I can (and do) live and work just fine without a car. Without health care, I would be either dead or entirely dependent on welfare and charity. That may be a choice but it’s far more similar to saying you can choose not to eat. That extends our lives too, after all.
 
Thanks for some great thoughts. Not all of them address exactly what I am pointing to. Maybe what I need is a definition of a “right”. In my opinion a “right” is not something that is forced upon you or which you are punished for when not partaking in.

If we are a free people are we truly free to make decisions on our own?

Are some things great and beneficial but only if you want and can afford them. Which would be a privledge?

How would define these words.

Having computer problems I probably won’t be able to follow this too closely but I am curious to the definitions that will be forth coming.

God Bless.
 
In my view, the trouble is that none of us could really have many rights without something being forced. That’s essentially what government does - it’s a trade of some freedoms for others. On the most basic level, we trade our rights to use force in exchange for the government’s promise to protect us from force. Because it’s better for us to know that someone else can’t take our property by force, we give up some of our property and rights to use force for ourselves. We just don’t have rights that don’t involve force somewhere.

The worry with health care is, if it is a right, the only way to enforce people’s ability to have it is by forcing other people to help bear the cost in some manner.
 
I do not have a complete handle on the issue of rights and responsibilities.

To me, our government is supposed to protect our rights, not create them. America became a great superpower and an attraction to all who wanted to better themselves long before we embarked on the Great Society. The poverty rate is as high or tad higher some 50 years later.

All the talk seems to be about society’s responsibility to fulfill individual rights. There seems to be very little discussion of each individual’s responsibility to not be a burden on others as much as possible.

It should go without saying that the truly incapable deserve our help. We must always have compassion. The hard part is determining what to do for those who could help themselves but refuse to. They can be quite persuasive in presenting all kinds of excuses about why they can’t and we must.

Check out 2 Thessalonians, Chapter 3.

No one knows the “cross over” line. How much government aid from the various programs can one receive without working or working very little? Let’s say it is $25,000 a year. That is roughly the equivalent of a $12.50 per hour full time job. What motivates one to work 2,000 hours a year at $12.50 an hour to earn $25,000 when he can get the equivalent from you and me for doing nothing or next to nothing?

What motivates a man to provide for his children and their mother when he knows you and I will do it for him? How should we honor his dishonorable behavior?

Discussing whether one has a right or not never seems to get down to how do we draw the line between true need and mooching. What return is required for our support? Or are we just expected to provide more support with no expectation of return?

Again I repeat: It should go without saying that the truly incapable deserve our help. We must always have compassion. The hard part is determining what to do for those who could help themselves but refuse to.
 
GratefulFred said:
It should go without saying that the truly incapable deserve our help. We must always have compassion. The hard part is determining what to do for those who could help themselves but refuse to. They can be quite persuasive in presenting all kinds of excuses about why they can’t and we must.

Check out 2 Thessalonians, Chapter 3.

No one knows the “cross over” line. How much government aid from the various programs can one receive without working or working very little? Let’s say it is $25,000 a year. That is roughly the equivalent of a $12.50 per hour full time job. What motivates one to work 2,000 hours a year at $12.50 an hour to earn $25,000 when he can get the equivalent from you and me for doing nothing or next to nothing?
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This is good. It’s complicated in the case of healthcare because we can’t as easily figure out what each person needs. I use my own case as an example. I earn as much as many young people my age, which admittedly is not much. However, I have multiple health issues requiring medication to manage. Pre-obamacare I wouldn’t be able to purchase private insurance. Without insurance coverage the medications I need to function could easily be a significant proportion of my income - to the point where I probably couldn’t afford it on the sort of income a person my age can usually make.

It’s actually a significant issue for someone like me because the trend for young people has been towards multiple part-time jobs, rather than full time jobs. Which means you can’t count on having benefits available.
 
DarkLight said:
In my view, the trouble is that none of us could really have many rights without something being forced. That’s essentially what government does - it’s a trade of some freedoms for others. On the most basic level, we trade our rights to use force in exchange for the government’s promise to protect us from force. Because it’s better for us to know that someone else can’t take our property by force, we give up some of our property and rights to use force for ourselves. We just don’t have rights that don’t involve force somewhere.

The worry with health care is, if it is a right, the only way to enforce people’s ability to have it is by forcing other people to help bear the cost in some manner.
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A “right” is a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man’s freedom of action in a social context.

We are born with only one right. That is the right to our own life. We have the right and freedom to take all the actions required for the support, the furtherance, the fulfillment and the enjoyment of our own life. That is the meaning of the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Since man has to sustain his life by his own effort, the man who has no right to the product of his effort has no means to sustain his life. The man who produces while others dispose of his product, is a slave.

A government is not the source of “rights”. Governments grant permissions. A permission can be revoked at any time. If you must obtain permission from a government—you are not free, whether such permission is granted to you or not. Only a slave acts on permission. A permission is not a right.
 
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