In my daily internet cruising, I ran across something somewhere (I can't find it now, of course) that asked why libertarians don't recognize "an obvious basic right to healthcare". Simple answer: because it doesn't exist. At least not in the way the "compassionate" socialists think of it. Most "healthcare rights" advocates think government (using stolen money) should provide the healthcare, or at least, force doctors to provide it. Nothing can be a basic right if it involves forcing someone else to do something against their will. A basic right can only be met by getting government out of the way. Allow people to self-medicate with whatever they see fit. Don't allow a government agency with a political agenda, and with favors to repay, to be the authority who decides which medications or procedures we are "allowed" to choose.
In a free world, healthcare would be a basic right. You would have the right to buy whatever healthcare you were able to afford, just as you do now. The difference would be that without government standing in the way, your choices would be greater, medications more plentiful and much more affordable, and you would not be forced to pay for the healthcare of anyone else. A similar example is that I have a right to own a fully automatic AR-15 even though the government interferes with this right through counterfeit "laws" which raise the price of the gun, and would punish me for owning one without their permission. Even if you disregard the "laws", no one has an obligation to provide me with the rifle. I can buy the gun I can afford, which may only be a yard sale BB gun. If someone decides to give me an AR-15, without being coerced into it, I would accept it. No one is forced to provide anything to anyone else, even if it is a basic right. It is only wrong to stand in the way of the free exercise of rights; not to refuse to subsidize someone else's rights.
Concretely, a right means that you can use force against people who try to take it away from you. So if there was such a thing as a right to health care, it would mean that, if you need health care (according to your own determination), and someone tries to stop you (say, because the pills belong to them), you can kill them. This is extremely bizarre at best, and would make no sense whatsoever if implemented as public policy.
ReplyDeleteI think it's important to point out to the "right to health care" crowd the many ways in which the government interferes in that "right" as you've outlined it, mainly through compulsory licensing and pushing up prices through medicaid/medicare and the like. Strangely enough, the most thorough explanations of this that I've heard in mainstream media was on NPR.
ReplyDeleteHealthcare is the last thing I want the government in charge of. My body is not a ward of the state. They have already insinuated themselves too far into that territory by the huge number of vaccinations they require kids to get. Way more than I got as a kid in the 70s and there is at least a little evidence that is why autism is on the rise.
ReplyDeleteIf government is in charge of paying for healthcare they will also be in charge of determining what that care will be.
Michael