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Health Care: A Right or a Privilege?
I don't know about you, but I was brought up to believe that an essential tenet of morality is that anyone who is sick or injured deserves medical treatment, no matter who they are and regardless of their ability to pay.
Indeed, when I worked in law enforcement it was considered cruel and unusual punishment to deny sick or injured arrestees and jail inmates medical care. Access to medical care most certainly is a right in this instance.
Providing health care to anyone who needs it is part of living in a civilized, humane society. It's not just for those who can afford comprehensive health care, Nor should it be limited to those whom the powers-that-be in this country consider as "worthy"; no one should have their character judged prior to being deemed eligible to see a doctor.
To deny someone health care because they are poor or, as Boortz would have it, lazy and don't want to work, is nothing less than repugnant in my book.. No one should have to work hard to earn the right to see a doctor when sick or injured.
Driving a car is a privilege. Getting medical assistance to maintain health and to live life free of pain and debility is not. It's a basic human right.
This is another talking point the right wants to get going, because telling
a lie often enough does become truth for many people. There is going to be
another health care debate and this is preparation to get people to
protest against their own interest
I am actually a practicing medical doctor, and I have worked in ER's.
Frankly, we already have socialized medicine in this country. More than
half of my patients on a given day would be 'self pay', as in 'no
insurance'. They weren't just indigents, either. We doctors and nurses
have compassion on, say, the homeless person with CHF who is brought in by
the police because he was dyspneic. I have no such sympathy for the 25
year old with an ingrown toenail coming in at 1:20AM on a friday, who has
no insurance (of course, I still treat him). Fact is, people use the ER as
their PMD. They don't pay, and the hospitals have to foot the bill for
their care. And EMTALA ensures that if you come to the ER, you get treated
and stabilized. So, the 'right' is already fullfilled. I think you have a
right to baseline, prevent-me-from-dying-like-a-dog health care, and if you
can get it, access to charity care for more expensive treatment (like in
all those evil Catholic hospitals that Patterson is driving out of New
York). If you are able-bodied, and can afford minimal health care, but
choose not to obtain it, the taxpayer shouldn't have to be on the hook.
What Boortz should have said was that ongoing, maintanizing health care is
a privilege, but the access (opportunity) to obtain medical care when in
need is as close to a right as you can get. A person with no job (or
underemployed) shouldn't expect to get the same care that George Clooney
gets. That is, of course, if you want total and complete socialism, where
no one is rich, and everyone is working for the State.
One idea: a law that forces everyone to cover themselves with at least
catastrophe-insurance, but allows them to choose who, with the government
providing the ultimate safety-net for those who absolutely can't-- the
mentally-ill, poor children under 18, disabled/elderly, veterans, or those
who's income forces them to choose between, say, eating or health care.
But not to the 'poor' who somehow afford $200 shoes, laptops, smartphones,
and flat screen plasmas, and two running cars in the driveway.
