Not satisfied with promulgating pseudo-scientific BS about global climate change, Al Gore is now bloviating about health care. Kevin,MD expresses considerable disappointment with the former veep’s position, at the center of which is the idiotic notion that health care is a “right”:
I strongly support universal, single payer, government-provided or government-funded health care … I think that it ought to be a matter of right.
As usual, Gore’s thinking is superficial and sloppy. OnThePharm sums up the problem with health care as a “right”:
Rights don’t take from one person to give to another … They are the things that cost nothing but are worth everything … Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness …
A “right” to health care suggests that one citizen has a claim on the labor and resources of another. The idea is ridiculous on its face. I no more have a right to health care than I have a right to Graham’s lunch.
Comments 34
Gore has been involved in health policy longer than half of Americans have been alive. He’s the author of the legislation that legalized pharmaceuticals that make organ transplantation work. He’s the guy who devised systems of making fair the wait lists for organ transplants. He was a player on orphan drugs. He’s been a staunch defender of public health.
He’s got a lot more credibility on these issues than anyone in the Bush Administration, who haven’t cared about health care since they sewed up Ronald Reagan’s gunshot wound.
Posted 18 Oct 2007 at 12:32 pm ¶Ed, I notice you failed to address my central point (i.e. whether or not we have a “right” to health care). What gives you (or me) the right to anyone else’s labor or resources?
Posted 18 Oct 2007 at 12:54 pm ¶So…. you would do away with public defenders? I mean, how dare someone use these attorneys’ labor and recourses; it’s not like they a right to defend themselves.
Posted 18 Oct 2007 at 1:39 pm ¶Bogus analogy. No one says to lawyers, “The general public now has a right to your services, whether they can pay or not.” Those who work as public defenders do it voluntarily, with no coercion.
Posted 18 Oct 2007 at 1:51 pm ¶It is actually an excellent analogy. Public defenders are paid with tax dollars, because the public harm resulting from having indigent defendants go unrepresented justifies it. Similarly fire departments and police protection. Do you have a “right” to have some stranger keep your house from burning down, or prevent you from being mugged? Sure you do — even when those services are difficult or expensive to provide, and even when you cannot pay for them. This use of the term “right” is well respected, and perfectly sensible in Gore’s context. Nearly everyone recognizes that some basic level of health care is, indeed a right; that’s why an emergency room will stop your bleeding even before they see your insurance card. It is perfectly reasonable to argue with a particular level of care being interpreted of “basic” — but it is not reasonable to insist that Gore is “idiotic” to state the obvious. Except, of course, in libertarian paradise, where everyone is voluntarily healthy, and gets a pony!
Posted 18 Oct 2007 at 2:20 pm ¶‘This use of the term “right” is well respected, and perfectly sensible in Gore’s context. ‘
The right to heathcare and welfare is enshrined in the UN Declaration of Human Rights. Funny how so many Americans would rather bear arms than engage in civilisation.
Posted 18 Oct 2007 at 2:40 pm ¶Public defenders are paid with tax dollars.
Again, lawyers VOLUNTARILY become public defenders, as do firemen and policemen. That’s not the same thing as picking a private physician’s pocket based on some imaginary “right.”
Posted 18 Oct 2007 at 3:00 pm ¶Your central point was whether we have a right to health care? You might have thought that after we pointed out that Gore is fully qualified to talk about it — but you picked the headline. Not my fault.
I also think you’re missing the point. You have no right to insist I pay more so that you can gloat that some poor person goes without medical care. And that’s exactly what you’re doing.
The biggest cost drain in our health care system right now is the $0.25 out of each health dollar that goes solely to keep poor people from getting health care. We pay about double what it would cost to give all U.S. poor people health insurance with no deductible, just to make sure they don’t get free care.
I assume you own a lot of stock in insurance companies, because no one studying the economics of the situation would be stupid enough to yell at Gore when it costs you a quarter of your health care money.
Would you?
Posted 18 Oct 2007 at 4:27 pm ¶No, not all lawyers volunteer to be public defenders. In fact, there is no jurisdiction in the U.S. where there are enough public defenders, and so in every jurisdiction in America lawyers are dragooned into provided legal counsel at usually greatly reduced prices.
Plus, in most states we’re obligated to give a week’s time for pro bono work.
Doctors do a lot of pro bono, too — all of which points to a high level of need for a better system than what we have now.
Posted 18 Oct 2007 at 4:29 pm ¶Presumably not a cent of public money goes into your medical schools then. After all, no one should ever feel any obligation to society.
Posted 18 Oct 2007 at 4:42 pm ¶One big difference regarding public defenders- there is no class of people that are prohibited from hiring a defense lawyer who is NOT paid by tax dollars, at a negotiated price.
In medicine, whole classes of people are prohibited from negotiating for services privately, and the whole of the providers of service are prohibited from charging more than is dictated by the government.
When all lawyers must provide 40% or more of their service at government dictated rates, the analogy will apply.
Posted 18 Oct 2007 at 8:47 pm ¶“The biggest cost drain in our health care system right now is the $0.25 out of each health dollar that goes solely to keep poor people from getting health care. We pay about double what it would cost to give all U.S. poor people health insurance with no deductible, just to make sure they don’t get free care.”
What are you talking about?
Posted 19 Oct 2007 at 12:12 pm ¶jre, The police cannot prevent a mugging otherwise you would have to have 24-7 protection or they would have to start arresting people before they committed crimes to prevent them. Plus they must be doing a bad job of providing me of my rights becasue crime is still out of control and houses burn down everyday.
What is being missed though is that the government cannot give anyone a right. They can only use force and coercion to provider a good or service to those that cannot or will not provide for themselves, and that is called welfare. Anytime the government creates this “welfare right” it reduces everyones elses rights to their earned resources.
Posted 25 Oct 2007 at 11:05 am ¶idiotic notion that health care is a right? Of course later in the same rant “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of happiness” are touted as our rigts? The definition of rights is set forth not by Webster, or you but by an agreed upon set of rights by any society. Ours happens to be the constitution which reads, “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
I guess I then would argue that in order to insure domestic tranquility and promote general welfare health care would have to be seriously considered.
Posted 27 Oct 2007 at 8:32 am ¶Later in the same rant “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of happiness” are touted as our rigts.
These rights all have one thing in common. You can honor them without picking anyone’s pocket. A “right” to health care implies that you have a claim on someone else labor and resources. Big difference.
Posted 27 Oct 2007 at 8:32 pm ¶Which of our rights are free? so our right to a speedy trial, to have our freedom protected (I would say the military is one of our most epensive right protecting organizations)by your definition then, only the rights that cost nothing are actual rights? Which ones cost nothing to provide or protect? As far as I can tell they are all provided and protected through our taxes. Please, I am dying to know which rights you have that haven’t cost a single penny of tax payer money?
Posted 29 Oct 2007 at 11:31 am ¶To say that the right to free expression doesn’t require a claim on someone else’s labor isn’t the same as saying that it is without cost. That’s a straw man. In reality, your “protection” argument actually works in MY favor.
Among our ACTUAL rights is that which allows us to keep the fruits of our own labor. Thus, when we pay (via taxes) for police and military, it is to protect that right (among others).
Your imaginary right to health care, on the other hand, would allow you to demand the fruits of someone else’s labor. That is referred to as serfdom.
Posted 29 Oct 2007 at 12:54 pm ¶Ok, so I am really just trying to understand your argument. If you have a car accident the fire department and EMTs should leave you on the side of the road because they cost money from my labor and only you in that case are reaping the fruits of it, infact I have been paying them for over 40 years, I should demand it back? So in your argument, anything that is not protecting the “fruits of our labor” is thus stealing from them at cost? like the public education system, if you have kids you should educate them at your own expense, or dont have kids? I dont get it, your a fundamentalist, every man for himself? I think if you read the bill of rights and the constitution you will find plenty of example where our shared taxes are used to establish something that is considered over all good for the populace, Department of education, Department of health and human services, and these cost money from the fruits of your labor. So the only real discussion/debate, is one that needs to be had by the majority population (being a democratic society and all) as to whether or not the population believes health care to be a right, not what you, me or Al Gore, rights are defined by a society, are you saying you represent american society in it’s totality?
Posted 29 Oct 2007 at 1:18 pm ¶You’re being deliberately obtuse here. Our rights as Americans are enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and they are rights to action rather than to the goods and services of other citizens. If the voters want to add more “rights,” an amendment to the latter document is required.
Posted 29 Oct 2007 at 1:55 pm ¶No, I am not purposely being obtuse, you said in a broad sweeping statement that health care being a right is an idiotic notion, you defended this by saying that it is because it lays a claim on someonelses labor. I have given concrete examples (not broad sweeping statements) further more the declaration of independence and the constitution both mention the well being of the populuce.
“form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness”
Posted 29 Oct 2007 at 2:28 pm ¶We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare” and welfare as defined by the dictionary is “noun 1. the good fortune, health, happiness, prosperity, etc., of a person, group, or organization; well-being: to look after a child’s welfare; the physical or moral welfare of society.”
and “welfare” defined clearly includes health. So I reiterate, it is not up to you, me or al gore, and I dont think you would need an amendment, and I do not see how it is any different than me paying for your car accident, your child’s education or any number of many other services that are supplied via our tax money which comes from the fruits of my labor?! I am just trying to understand your point.
As a doctor I should be able to turn down anybody if they cant afford to pay, no matter how sick or how dire thier need, because if I cant that robs me the fruits of my labor? Are you so sure if you walk in my door with no money and a loved one who has cancer, heart disease or the like?
Again,
There is no “right” to police or fire protection. You do have a right to band together as a community and purchase these services, however. You also have a right to vote against purchasing these services. Many towns have no police, and use volunteers for fire protection.
Also, Dept of Education, Dept of Health and Human services, etc are not mentioned anywhere in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights.
You will notice that the preamble mentions the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
Note that it does not say the right to “life, liberty, and happiness.” In these words, IMHO, Jefferson embodied the notion that our rights are our freedom to pursue those things we wish to have (It originally read “pursuit of property”) but not an absolute right to have them. It embodies the notion that we are each respoinsible to ourselves to secure those things. Since liberty is mentioned ahead of “pursuit of happiness” we can likely conclude that such pursuits should not infringe on other’s right to liberty.
To conscript members of your society into service (other than as allowed by the document, i.e. a military draft) that denies them their liberty is not now, nor has it ever been, a right.
How can healthcare be a right? If conditions exist which make it an unfavorable profession, and people leave it, how can it be a right? How the the government be forced to provide to you that which it cannot obtain from it’s citizens, in the absence of conscription?
Posted 29 Oct 2007 at 2:52 pm ¶In fact many of the services we enjoy as american citezens are not mentioned in the constitution, further more, Jefferson and his contemporaries, in all thier wisdom, intended to leave the definitions of rights somewhat vague. As described by scholars much smarter than I the constitution is a living a breathing document, meaning that it is intended to evolve and change. I will reiterate for a fourth time. Rights are not defined by me, you, catron or al gore, they are defined by the society for which they apply, I did not say (though I believe it is) that health care is a right, what I am saying is we must decide that as a society. If we struck strictly to the written word of the constitution (rather than the spirit) we would have little of what we have now. In any case the rights that you have are not free, money is spent and it comes from you and me, so really using the fact that it costs money for medical care to define it as not a right is rather weak. In regards to the constition, if you read the preamble, “provide for the general welfare” which is in the preamble of the “CONSTITUTION” life liberty and the pursuit of happiness are in the preamble of the “Declaration of Independence). American law works on common law supported by the law of the land (except louisianna, go figure) the declaration of independence was a document to justify war/revolution, it is not the law of the land, the constitution is and in the very first portion is reads, that “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare” again I direct you to the definition of welfare.
Posted 29 Oct 2007 at 4:10 pm ¶Bottom line, the american people can do as they wish, it doesnt have to be in the constitution, it just has to be not unconstitutional. So if the society says we want this as a right in our society, so be it. Not for me to decide
Posted 29 Oct 2007 at 4:14 pm ¶You have conspicuously omitted the phrase “secure the Blessings of Liberty.”
I also note that it read GENERAL welfare, not individual welfare.
In any case, the point is moot. You have proclaimed that is it “Not for [you] to decide.” This means that either a) You are not an American citizen, or b) you have foresworn your RIGHT to vote and be represented.
As an American citizen, it IS for me to decide.
Posted 29 Oct 2007 at 10:10 pm ¶Not for me as an individual to decide, I do not, nor do I purport to speak for the entire population, which is who defines rights in this society (see articel IX of the Bill of Rights), and if you read the blog trail (is that what it is called?)that was my point. That saying someones notion of what rights we have is idiotic without first checking whether or not it meets the definition is, well, idiotic. We may opine what we think a right should be, but only the opinion of the majority of the populace makes it a right or not.
Posted 30 Oct 2007 at 6:49 am ¶Sorry, I forgot to adress my conspicuous ommition of “liberty”. I suppose I left out a great deal of the constitution. Liberty is a slippery definition, if you study John Locke and the likes you will find many definitions positive liberty, negative liberty. In any case this further supports my point, our founding farthers, in thier infinite wisdom, left this definition to us. We are to define it as we go, as we need, “WE” are to define which liberties are so important to the individual that they must necessarily place a burden on society, and visa versa.
Posted 30 Oct 2007 at 7:01 am ¶“As an american citizen it is for me to decide” is a common misperception in democracy. As a dictator it is for “me” to decide, as an American citizen it is for “me” to be part of the decision making process and have a say in such decision. Or have you recently become americas dictator? So actually I am a citizen and have not sworn off my right to be part of the decision, I just understand that it is not up to “me”.
Posted 30 Oct 2007 at 7:16 am ¶Actually you entered this thread with the question:
“idiotic notion that health care is a right?”
and later:
“That saying someones notion of what rights we have is idiotic without first checking whether or not it meets the definition is, well, idiotic.”
According to your own posting above, since the society at large has not declared healthcare a right, it is not a right. Until and unless the society at large, by virtue of our representative government establish laws that make healthcare a “right” it is not a right. So to claim that it is a right, when it has not been established as such, is, well, “idiotic.”
At this time, the only healthcare “right” is to be treated in emergency situations and labor by emergency rooms, via EMTALA.
Posted 30 Oct 2007 at 9:16 am ¶Quite true, I agree that it has not been declared a right, however, the notion is not idiotic. Point, the question has not really been put to the test, though it has not been defined as an overt right it has neither been defined as “not a right” supporting the fact, and my arguement, that the notion is not idiotic.
Posted 30 Oct 2007 at 9:24 am ¶Catron’s notion that this is definetly not a right, and/or Gore’s notion that it is are neither idiotic nor completely correct. I argue that the question has not been put to the test. I opine that it should be a right, others opine that it shouldn’t. Historically there have been “implied and accepted” rights that have taken time (as does the big wheels of government to take) to be represented through legislation.
Posted 30 Oct 2007 at 9:31 am ¶Note; all of our specific rights are not defined by the constitution, they are implied by the general rights afforded, common law, and through applications of the judicial branch. You can read for years rulings of the supreme court that define rights that we didn’t know we had until brought to task. (i.e. right to parody, right to abortion). So, incorrect, only if you do not understand how our rights are defined, decided on, implemented, legistated and enforced would you consider the notion of a right “idiotic” unless it has already been defined as “not a right” (obviously if it has been defined as a right it wouldn’t be an idiotic notion)Please refer to the exact law or exemption that defines health care as not a right if there is one. In fact taking all this into consideration you could arguably apply the portions of the constitution and common law presidence (providing health care to those who need but have not means) and make a compelling case before the supreme court that basic health care is a right, thus the notion could not be idiotic. I am personally discouraged by how little people understand the process in which rights are outlined and defined such that they would say the notion is idiotic. Maybe a study of the three branches of government and the constitution should be required in more depth.
Posted 30 Oct 2007 at 10:52 am ¶You make some valid points - but I will use one of them as an example.
You mention the right to abortion, which we did not know we had until it was tested. As it stands now, there is a right to abortion - meaning, that the government cannot interfere should you decide to have an abortion. It does not mean, however, that the government must PROVIDE the abortion. You have the right to one, but that is no guarantee that you have the MEANS for one. (i.e. physicians are not compelled to provide abortions, nor is the government providing them wholesale for those that cannot afford them).
Perhaps it is the same semantics, but in the current debate, it is not the “right” (defined as something which the government cannot legally deny you) that is being debated, but the “means” for securing the object of the “right”. Similarly, I have the right to parody, but the government does not provide a recording studio, and the right to free speech, but the government does not provide airtime or a platform for said speech.
Posted 30 Oct 2007 at 12:04 pm ¶There’s the rub, agree completely. The government (otherwise known as we the people) must decide those details, this is where my personal opinion, and yours are taken into poll. Bottom line on this string is that the notion that it is a right is not idiotic. I suppose this is where the argument on who pays, how etc becomes, well, the ignition point for much debate. I find it all very interesting and stimulating. If the populace says, we want to all pitch in (via taxes) such that the govt (we the people) can buy some sort of basic health care package so that all of us have some form of basic health care. Then I agree, it isn’t to say that it should force doctors to work for that system, in fact if doctors dont, the government will be forced to offer a competative rate for thier services, as they do for attorneys, judges etc. But if the public says, no thanks, we will just keep going, then I think the government (we the people) should step out completely, that is get rid of medicare rules that often cripple doctors, and remove emtala and so on. It seems unfair that I should have to operate a business and also straddle the line as a right. I dont think you can have it both ways, you can’t make me provide some care for free because it is an emergency then tell me I have to survive as a business.
Posted 30 Oct 2007 at 12:38 pm ¶Here is a link to a Businessweek story.
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_47/b4059062.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_technology
Synopsis: A ex-Navy MD is doing research on a radical way to minimize damage to the brain during a stroke.
How does this play into Government health care?
Easy, the Government would *never* fund this since it doesn’t have obvious positive cost/benefit ratios, and
the track record of experimental stroke treatments is so
dismal.
Just another example of the private sector willing and able to go out on a (very long) limb to try and find a better treatment. Try and find that level of risk taking
in the NIH/CDC bureauracy…..
Buwahahahahahahahahaha!
Posted 13 Nov 2007 at 9:42 am ¶Post a Comment