USA Today on the "Right" to Healthcare

Health care is a right


Miles J. Zaremski - Highland Park, Ill.

Health care is a right The USA TODAY article "21% of Americans scramble to cover medical, drug bills" illustrates how badly broken our health care system is, and that it needs immediate reform (News, Cover story, March 11).

Health care is a right for all Americans. During a presidential debate last fall against Sen. John McCain, then-Sen. Barack Obama made that point. President Obama should now make the same strong declaration from the Oval Office.

Millions are uninsured and underinsured. Others are forced into bankruptcy as they try to pay their medical bills. Without our health, we cannot earn income, and thus care for ourselves, our families and our communities.


My Commentary:

The fundamental principle that America was founded upon is unalienable individual rights possessed equally by all people, at all times, and protected equally and at all times by government. They are guarantees to freedom of action within a social context...such as the rights to speech and religious practice. The strong constitutional protections for property rights sanctions the right to satisfy one's own needs through one's own productive work or through voluntary trade (freedom of association) with others. Rights are validated by man's nature as a being of reason, and the factual requirements necessary for his survival, qua individual. These rights presuppose the right to life.

Rights are not an automatic claim to the products, labor, or earnings of others. Nor are they created by the arbitrary assertions of politicians, "society", or anyone's claims of "need". To enforce an alleged "right" to any man-made value such as health care means that the government must be granted the power to loot and enslave its people. This is the very evil America's founding principles were meant to abolish.

The only proper and civilized way for one to acquire the healthcare that one needs is to pay for it out of one's own earnings through direct purchase or through a prior, voluntary contractual agreement such as insurance. Otherwise, one must depend upon some type of voluntary, uncoerced charity. Any method involving force...governmental or otherwise...is immoral and un-American. It must be said; Need is not a license to steal, or to elect political surrogates for that purpose. Establishing need as a license to steal, as Mr. Zaremski implicitly advocates, is the path to a slave state governed by a predatory government. It is a society ruled by the law of the jungle..."I need it, therefor I can seize it by force."

There are no facts of reality that establish the right to healthcare, shelter, food, cars, or any other man-made wealth, other than what one can acquire through voluntary, uncoerced production and trade. Replacing the current semi-socialist, semi-fascist system with a free market in medicine is the only moral, rights-upholding path to widely available, affordable, and quality healthcare.