My Right to Health Care

Alright, y'all asked for it, so I'm going to give you my dos pesos on American Health Care.

...ok, so maybe nobody actually asked for it, but that doesn't mean I can't throw out my thoughts, right? This is America. Land of the free and all.

I'm going to take the health care issue from the first person. It's so easy to talk about health care when you are talking about someone else, like some dude from Delaware and his ailing grandmother or a man with a debilitating illness in Omaha. But what about where the rubber meets the road? What happens when I think about me being that grandmother?

Hmmm...actually, let's go with me being the man from Omaha, what say ye?

Do I have a right to health care? Say I'm sick. I have insurance, but it stopped covering my costs at about $10,000 for some reason. My health care will cost me $150,000 and I may or may not get better. I'm a middle class dude and the $150,000 bill will force me into bankruptcy.

Do I have a right, as an American, to have my illness treated without paying for it myself?

I must emphatically say "no" I do not have a right to health care.

"But your either broke or dead then!"

Yeah. Under the current system, that is true. But that still doesn't mean I have a right to health care. And you know why that is?

Because in order for me to obtain health care I have to take another American's life by force.

"What...?"

Yep. Let's talk about the doctor, the guy or gal that knows how to save my life or at least salvage it. How did she get the tools to do that?

She worked her tail off, that's how. She sacrificed her time (time I spent not becoming a doctor) to get great grades in college, get into med school, graduate med school, go through internships and residency and everything else and became a doctor.

So, if I sit here and claim a right to health care, I am claiming ownership over that doctor's life. I cannot make that claim as a freedom loving American. I cannot in good conscience say that her skills and abilities are something that I have a claim on.

I believe that doctors have worked harder, studied longer and are probably smarter than I am, therefore, I believe that they should make every dime that they can for the service they provide, and to say that I have a right to their service means that either they perform it for free or someone else is taxed (taking their time and life) to pay for my health care.

And that's essentially what claiming a right to health care boils down to for me. I mean, think about the things that truly are our rights: life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness.

The right to speak freely without fear of being punished by the government for that speech (but not necessarily speech without consequences). The right to bear arms (meaning the government isn't the only one with the guns aka "power of force".) And others, such as the right to face the witnesses against us in a trial, the right to not have excessive punishment levied upon us, etc. None of the rights we claim in our Constitution are also burdens upon other people, in effect stripping them of their rights.

Undoubtedly, there are many issues with the current system of health care in America, but this idea of a right to health care that keeps creeping up is something that really gets under my skin. I'll probably need to have another blog laying out what I would do for American health care if I were king of the world. In fact, I think I will, but for now I'll just start with a bit of a tease of topics I'll broach:

• What has happened to charity in America? I promise this relates to health care.
• Why is health care so expensive? If nobody (or only a very few) can afford health care, how can doctors and hospitals stay in business?
• Are doctors making too much money? (But wait, I thought you just said that doctors deserve every dime they can make?)
• The last time you went to the doctor, how much did it cost? I don't care what you paid. What was the cost?
  
• On what planet does it make sense to have health insurance tied to employment?
• Is health insurance really insurance?

There you have it, my foray into major issues on Come and Blog It. I don't claim to be the smartest man in the world (though I am the fastest and strongest), so critique away. But I do believe that no one will ever convince me that I have a claim on a service that can only be provided by another individual.