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Is healthcare a right or a privilege?

Is healthcare a right?

  • Yes

    Votes: 36 60.0%

  • No

    Votes: 24 40.0%
  • Total voters
    60
You do not have a right to someone else's services. Healthcare is not a right... call it something else...
 
celticwar17 said:
You do not have a right to someone else's services. Healthcare is not a right... call it something else...
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What about the civil servants. Do we have a right to what they provide?

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celticwar17 said:
You do not have a right to someone else's services. Healthcare is not a right... call it something else...
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People who don't have much money aren't entitled to health care?
 
Grand Mal said:
If you pay taxes, you have a right to certain government services. That's what you pay taxes for. Why do you pay taxes if not to make it possible for the community to provide services.
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And I pay taxes for plowing services, but the state still doesn't send plows out here. I either pay to have the road plowed myself, do it myself, or it doesn't get done. Calling the state to get them out here doesn't even work as they simply say they don't send them out my way.
 
If a government of a country - in my case Sweden - decides to make healthcare a right then it is one. Rights can be given and taken away by those who hold power at will. They are human creations in the same way that laws are.

The question whether healthcare should be a right is a different one.
 
Grand Mal said:
People who don't have much money aren't entitled to health care?
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No.

But then again neither are those who do have much money.

It's not a right. It isn't an entitlement. It's a service.
 
Henrin said:
How?

..
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EMTALA and Medicaid for starters. Why not just make Medicaid the "public option" but with a payroll tax (of say 5% to 10%) of gross income? Think of medical care in the same way you now think of national defense - only some pay income taxation (and in varying amounts) but all enjoy the same benefits of national defense spending.
 
JayDubya said:
Neither, it's a service sold on the free market.
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WINNER, WINNER...CHICKEN DINNER!!!

To all the rest of you:

1. When the topic is "health care"...don't talk to me about "health insurance". They are NOT the same thing.

2. Health care providers are NOT civil servants...at least, not yet.

3. EMTLAA royally screwed up our market-based health care pricing system. After that happened, the government keeps trying...and failing...to "fix" things. Thanks for a big, fat NOTHING!
 
This is where I teasingly get called a "fake conservative" by a few of my friends because I believe that basic & preventive healthcare should be accessible to everyone.

For profit healthcare goes against the grain with me.......always has.
 
Bucky said:
Is healthcare a right or a privilege.

I would assume if you believe healthcare is a right, than everyone should have access to healthcare, and for many, free healthcare. If healthcare is free, than who would be the ones paying for it?
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The question is less, whether or not health care is a right. As a matter of fact the question put in that way is very counterproductive and suggests a simplicity that just doesn't exist.

Treating a lady that collapsed on the side walk with a heart attack is quite different from sending her to a convalescent hospital in Davos for a month to recuperate.
Taking the risk that she will nit pay might be considered a public obligation. The second followed through for every heart patient will make the system more expensive than even the US could pay for.
 
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Bucky said:
Is healthcare a right or a privilege.

I would assume if you believe healthcare is a right, than everyone should have access to healthcare, and for many, free healthcare. If healthcare is free, than who would be the ones paying for it?
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It is a right like food, clothing or shelter are - yet we still expect most folks to provide that for themselves and their dependents and do not limit/ration that for those that elect to buy expensive items or (generally) allow income tax deductions for those expenses. Everyone has "access to" housing yet landlords and home sellers expect to get paid for providing that private good. IMHO, Medicaid should become the "public option" but at a cost of a fixed percentage of one's gross income for those that opt for it.
 
RetiredUSN said:
This is where I teasingly get called a "fake conservative" by a few of my friends because I believe that basic & preventive healthcare should be accessible to everyone.

For profit healthcare goes against the grain with me.......always has.
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Why? We have for profit food, clothing and shelter which are also essential goods. It is simply not practical to mandate that all medical care be provided by non-profit and/or government run facilities (see the VA for details). If the government treated SNAP like they do Medicaid then folks would be left to seek out food providers that would accept 75% (or less) of the market price to serve SNAP customers.
 
Winston said:
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The same people who pay insurance premiums every month.. except everyone pays.. in single-payer.
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Nope. Single payer and insurance is totally different.
 
Bucky said:
Many people in this country can't afford a premium payment.
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It's like clothing, housing or food. If you can't pay, it is very restricted, what you can have.
 
Bucky said:
Many people in this country can't afford a premium payment.
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Many can't afford a single family home either and must rent (at costs exceding the mortgage payment) yet we do not have single payer housing.
 
Captain Adverse said:
It is not an inherent right. (Otherwise we wouldn't need doctor's to provide it to us) It is a privilege of citizenship if and only if the citizenry agrees and accepts this responsibility.

Think of it like we do the obligations we accept to pay for provision of mutual defense, justice, and education.

So if we as a society accept the idea that we can and should afford citizens at least some basic form of healthcare protection, then this obligates us to cooperate in funding and becomes a shared privilege of citizenship.
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"It" is a wide range of very different products. Some are cheap others exquisitely expensive. Some are genetic and others are contracted from xxxl soda pops and french fries.
 
Serenity said:
At the end of the day it matters not. The real debate is how you accomplish the goal for all to have access to health care in an affordable, timely and sustainable way, otherwise the song remains the same.
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When expressed in these general terms, I don't think that you'll have anyone disagree.
How to make such a system affordable and sustainable, and then opinions differ strongly and significantly.
 
Bucky said:
Is healthcare a right or a privilege.

I would assume if you believe healthcare is a right, than everyone should have access to healthcare, and for many, free healthcare. If healthcare is free, than who would be the ones paying for it?
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Where in the US Constitution, without undue contortions and distortions, does it state that healthcare is a right?
 
Bucky said:
Is healthcare a right or a privilege.

I would assume if you believe healthcare is a right, than everyone should have access to healthcare, and for many, free healthcare. If healthcare is free, than who would be the ones paying for it?
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Like it or not, for all intents and purposes necessary healthcare is a right. We are not a nation of sociopaths, thus anyone that shows up at a hospital in need of care gets it regardless of their ability to pay. Thus its a right. We don't say well I know you got cancer, but you should have bought health insurance, so since you don't have the ability to pay, we are not going to treat you. No one does that because they would not be able to sleep at night if they did. So it is a right whether people recognize it as one or not. We may as well recognize it for what it is then we can figure out how best to pay for it.
 
I believe basic healthcare is a right and that full healthcare should be a right for those who cannot/have difficulty working to pay for insurance (like children and the disabled). This does not apply to non-disabled seniors as they had a lifetime to save up for healthcare insurance for their retirement.

But for everyone else, I think they should have to pay for full/Cadillac healthcare coverage. Plus, I believe government should stay completely out of regulating health insurance...the latter should be a completely free market.

And, of course, there is always charitable healthcare.

But for any American to not have access to at least basic healthcare for free is ludicrous in 2017.
 
eohrnberger said:
Where in the US Constitution, without undue contortions and distortions, does it state that healthcare is a right?
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Let's say you are in charge of hospital admitting. An individual shows up that is having a heart attack. They don't have insurance, and obviously have no ability to pay for their care. Do you turn them out into the street? I doubt you would because you would not be able to sleep at night if you did. So guess what, for that reason, healthcare is a right. We might not like it, we might wish people were more responsible, but because we all go to be able to sleep at night, for all intents and purposes it is a right. We may as well as accept that and then we can figure out how best to pay for it.
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
Let's say you are in charge of hospital admitting. An individual shows up that is having a heart attack. They don't have insurance, and obviously have no ability to pay for their care. Do you turn them out into the street? I doubt you would because you would not be able to sleep at night if you did. So guess what, for that reason, healthcare is a right. We might not like it, we might wish people were more responsible, but because we all go to be able to sleep at night, for all intents and purposes it is a right. We may as well as accept that and then we can figure out how best to pay for it.
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Fortunately, that is not how rights are determined. If it were, a desperate man showing up at your door on a freezing night would have a 'right' to stay at your house. Good luck defending that proposition.
 
Winston said:
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The same people who pay insurance premiums every month.. except everyone pays.. in single-payer.
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What about the 50 percent who pay no taxes at all. Aren't they getting a very expensive free ride?
 
Bucky said:
Is healthcare a right or a privilege.

I would assume if you believe healthcare is a right, than everyone should have access to healthcare, and for many, free healthcare. If healthcare is free, than who would be the ones paying for it?
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It is a right, but only insofar as it is an extension of our right of association to seek out those we wish to have interactions with for whatever mutually consensual purposes. The problem comes in how some people are defining rights nowadays.

A right is something that our government is not allowed to make illlegal to us, or that a third party is not allow to stop. Now with that last part, they can encourage us to stop, but they can't force it. And of course right have limitations, especially where they impinge on others' rights.

We have the right to healthcare insofar as the government is not allowed to deny us our ability to seek those who provide it in any form, be it a GP, a pharmacist, a dentist, etc. This does not mean that we are automatically provided such from those who provide that which we have a right to. For example, I have the right to bear arms, but there is no requirement for anyone to give me a weapon. In that same manner while we have the right to healthcare, no one is required to provide that to us. To use the gun example again, while I have a right to bear arms, if I cannot afford to purchase said arms, my right is still not violated, even if the reason is that the purchase price is excessively high. Likewise, just because one has a right to healthcare does not mean that one can afford it.

Again a right simply means that neither a third party individual nor the government can deny you access to whatever the right is. The right does not guarantee that you will be able to take advantage of it.
 
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