We Need A Shot In The Arm: The Health Plans

[joannatsf]

But "rights" don't necessarily correspond to things that we need to survive or be happy.  Freedom of speech might be all well and good, but health care when I'm sick is usually more important to me.  Freedom of association is fine, but if I have to trade it for food when I'm starving, I will.  The thing that makes a right isn't that it's vital or necessary, but that it can apply universally and can be upheld even in a worst-case scenario.  If everyone is starving or sick, whatever rights to food and medicine they have make little difference, but the rights to life, liberty, and property are still important protections.

You can still provide something to everyone as an obligation of the government without making it a right.

Perhaps you should move your thinking beyond Malthus?  Food scarcity is not an issue in any part of the first world.  Every othe G7 nation provides healthcare to it population and Europe and Japan both enjoy the same or higher standards of living as the USA.  Whether healthcare is right or not is a pointless excercise in semantics.  It's a neccesity and even the USA recognises that fact by mandating emrgency services to all, an incredibly inefficient means of distribution.  Or should we follow your thoughts to their logical conclusion and step over the dead paupers lieing in the street?

[tekla]

an incredibly inefficient means of distribution

True that, in fact, its the least cost effective way of doing it.

And, as someone who has had to walk around, and work around dead bodies on the sidewalk, it ain't pretty.

[Kaitlyn]

I'm done with this, Claire.  Post whatever you want.

[tekla]

Well as soon as we get all the Ann Ryan types out, maybe we might join the rest of the industrial world.  Then again, almost half of the people will vote for Sara Palin, so I'm not holding my breath.

[cindianna_jones]

Hey... I'll cave on the "right" thang.  Okay, it's not a right.

But let's get it goin.... K?

cindi

[debbie j]

i dont care what you call it a right or what ever . but everyone . not just the usa  but EVERYONE ! should have  healthcare no matter

if it was before you got this healthcare or after. and it should cover everything from a to z

[joannatsf]

Well as soon as we get all the Ann Ryan types out, maybe we might join the rest of the industrial world.  Then again, almost half of the people will vote for Sara Palin, so I'm not holding my breath.

Did you mean Ayn Rand?  Ann Ryan is a poet.  Ayn Rand on the other hand blows Karl Marx in Hell