Has anyone brought up the notion that healthcare doesn't have to be an actual right in order for us to have universal healthcare?
So I made this post on the front page that wasn't ever addressed that I think touches on your point here: s0nicfan posted...
First off let me begin by saying that I want everyone to have access to healthcare and I think the current healthcare system is critically flawed and far too expensive.
BUT, it isn't a right. That's because rights are supposed to be permanent "inalienable" things. A right to free speech means I have it forever. A right to assembly means I have it forever. A right to a jury of peers means I have that forever. The problem with healthcare as a right is that health has a unique personal responsibility angle to it. If I decide to do nothing but eat garbage, never exercise, balloon out to 300lbs.. that can negatively impact access and cost to healthcare of others... directly negatively impacting their "right" to healthcare through increases in taxes, fees, organ donor wait lists, er wait times, etc. If healthcare is a right, that means I hold no responsibility for those actions, because no matter what I do you can't take my right away.
There are things that people deserve access to, but aren't rights, simply because we need to reserve the ability to revoke something from someone abusing it. Healthcare is one such thing. The moment we make it a right, we acknowledge that personal responsibility no longer applies to it, and no matter what someone does we have to give them full access to it, forever.
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"History Is Much Like An Endless Waltz. The Three Beats Of War, Peace And Revolution Continue On Forever." - Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz