Posted by
Defend America on Thursday, November 19, 2009 6:13:04 PM
Health Care is not a right
By: Iain Murray and Roger Abbott
Washington Examiner
11/17/09 5:10 PM EST
President
Obama argues that his party’s health care reform proposals are about
“bending the price curve” However, the Democrats’ health care agenda is
really about nationalizing health care, based on the concept that
health care is a right, and therefore must be secured by the state.
This claim is misleading for several reasons, but most fundamentally
because of its conflation of “rights” and “needs.” Obamacare opponents
need to address this emotional appeal. After all, who can be against
basic “rights”?
Lying on a bed in an emergency room this week following a cardiac
scare, one of us had an opportunity to think this through. He had a
need for healthcare, one which was being met, but to what extent was it
meaningful that he had a right to healthcare?
A right, in both a legal and practical sense, is simply an
entitlement due to an individual that other people are obliged to
respect, with a failure to comply typically resulting in some sort of
sanction. Because rights entail claims on other people, they are
necessarily negative in their construction and limited in their
definition. Constitutional rights such as freedom of speech and
religion and the right to property can be clearly defined in accordance
with John Stuart Mill’s harm principle—act as you will so long as you
do not directly harm others.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/Examiner-Opinion-Zone/Health-Care-is-not-a-right-70302612.html