Philosophy

A “Right” To Health Care?

A right to something implies no one can legitimately take it from you or prevent you from enjoying that right. Thus a right to something means you are justified to use force to defend it. For example you have a right to your life, so if someone attacks you or threatens your life you can use force to defend it. If someone tries to steal your property you are morally justified to defend it with force due to your right to it. Now let us apply this to a “right” to health care.

Assuming this right, if you were to go up to a doctor and ask for free care and the doctor refuses, you would then have the right to use force against him to make him provide you with his service. Or, such a “right” would give you the moral justification to go to a third party and demand he/she pay the medical provider for your use of the service, and justify the use of force if necessary to acquire the money. What we are then saying by accepting a “right” to health care is that, in the first instance, any person who provides medical services is your slave and you can use force against that person for failing to provide you with your “right” to health care. In the second instance you are claiming that you have a right to the fruit of any person’s labor—their money is your money. This, of course, is preposterous; you can’t have a “right” to a service, or a “right” to someone else’s labor. Claiming a “right” to medical care is like claiming a “right” to a haircut, you can’t have a right to a service, as that then places the provider of the service in a state of slavery (or if the service provider must still be paid, it puts the third party who was forced to pay for the service into a state of slavery).

A real right does not force anything from anyone; it simply gives the individual the power over himself, and justifies the defense of his person and his property. The argument over slavery should have ended a long time ago, but the “progressives” of the past 100 years are trying to bring it back into style, just under a different name and a less obvious form.

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