4 ms·

False, healthcare is a human right

vokep 8y ago
False. Healthcare requires care, as in, labor. A right to someone else's labor is a right to enslave. Healthcare is about the most sugar-coated version of it imaginable, but it doesn't change that fundamentally the "right to healthcare" is the right to force others to take care of you.
- will_brown 8y ago
  >A right to someone else's labor is a right to enslave. And yet there is a Constitutional right to a lawyer in most criminal cases if you can’t afford one. I can assure you, while public defenders might not get paid well and maybe many can’t afford their student loans, they are not slaves.
  - lovich 8y ago
    Even the right to life and liberty requires the government to have people work at jobs to maintain security. Other than an-caps, even the most rabid libertarian thinks the government should provide national security. Isn't that all forced "slave labor" by this same argument?
  - conanbatt 8y ago
    The slaves are the tax payers in your analogy, because they pay for the public defenders. But that case is more defensible: the enforcing of the rule of law is powerful for freedom. So sacrificing some freedom to get a lot of freedom is an easy case. Health services do not relate to freedom, but to the cost of insurance. If the government can provide a cheaper healthcare then it should provider a cheaper healthcare, and citizens can choose the government's plan and it will eat out the competition. Why would the government need to ban the competition if its so good at providing insurance?
    - aplummer 8y ago
      > Why would the government need to ban the competition if its so good at providing insurance? In no country ever is private healthcare and competition banned. There is a free* hospital across the street from me and I have private healthcare. It’s about acknowledging that a) it is cheaper for everyone if people with no money go to the doctor early, because a GP is 1k% less expensive to society than a hospital bed runout. This is one of the reasons healthcare in single payer countries is ~50% per capita. B) people without money don’t deserve to die because they are poor and should have basic treatments, even when it is their own fault they are poor and make bad decisions. * I pay tax which pays for the hospital
      - conanbatt 8y ago
        > In no country ever is private healthcare and competition banned. There is a free* hospital across the street from me and I have private healthcare. Thats not factually true: there are many places that ban private healthcare, including canada. Then there are other conditions that punish private disproportionately: like funding public healthcare with taxes, but private healthcare with private funds: that means a person would have to pay 2 insurances to get private services. Also single payer really means there is only 1 insurance, so yes, it bans all other insurances. > It’s about acknowledging that a) it is cheaper for everyone if people with no money go to the doctor early, because a GP is 1k% less expensive to society than a hospital bed runout. This is one of the reasons healthcare in single payer countries is ~50% per capita. There are multiple issues why healthcare in the US is more expensive than "single payer systems", and preventative medicine is a small part. > people without money don’t deserve to die because they are poor and should have basic treatments, even when it is their own fault they are poor and make bad decisions. Is this moral line of yours defined by the country? Because if you want to save people's lives, single payer systems are very expensive. Its a lot better to open immigration and bring poor people from abroad.
- vertex-four 8y ago
  Or, it’s an obligation on society to organise in such a way that healthcare is provided to anybody who needs it by whatever means you like. Taxes, charity, whatever else. Obligations are not per se unethical - the most basic one being not to cause harm to people in carrying out whatever you’re doing, but there’s many others - and current society uses taxes to ensure that their obligations are fulfilled, but there’s other options too.
- aplummer 8y ago
  This is an unrealistic absolutist argument in any realistic view of the modern world with actual governments especially given the extreme excess of resources on earth to provide everyone with good medical care. “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care…”[1] [1] Article 25 UN Declaration of Human Rights
  - conanbatt 8y ago
    The right to acquire it or the right to get it from someone else?
    - aplummer 8y ago
      The right to it even if you are mentally ill, broke, bad at decision making or all of the above. My point is definitely that you have an obligation to provide society funding for healthcare even if they don’t pay. Just like the military will defend them even if they don’t pay, or a firefighter will put out their house.
      - conanbatt 8y ago
        > The right to it even if you are mentally ill, broke, bad at decision making or all of the above. The right to be provided something is the right to take from someone else. There is no escape to this, its a right that infringes on the right of others. Theft cannot be a human right, and i would strongly reject anyone that defends such a thing, including the UN.
        aplummer 8y ago
        I understand now, when firefighters save homeless people, the homeless people are stealing from others. This thread is going nowhere, you clearly value money more than the health of people less fortunate than you. Systemic poverty and sick people, who cares right.

False. Healthcare requires care, as in, labor. A right to someone else's labor is a right to enslave. Healthcare is about the most sugar-coated version of it imaginable, but it doesn't change that fundamentally the "right to healthcare" is the right to force others to take care of you.

will_brown 8y ago
>A right to someone else's labor is a right to enslave. And yet there is a Constitutional right to a lawyer in most criminal cases if you can’t afford one. I can assure you, while public defenders might not get paid well and maybe many can’t afford their student loans, they are not slaves.
- lovich 8y ago
  Even the right to life and liberty requires the government to have people work at jobs to maintain security. Other than an-caps, even the most rabid libertarian thinks the government should provide national security. Isn't that all forced "slave labor" by this same argument?
- conanbatt 8y ago
  The slaves are the tax payers in your analogy, because they pay for the public defenders. But that case is more defensible: the enforcing of the rule of law is powerful for freedom. So sacrificing some freedom to get a lot of freedom is an easy case. Health services do not relate to freedom, but to the cost of insurance. If the government can provide a cheaper healthcare then it should provider a cheaper healthcare, and citizens can choose the government's plan and it will eat out the competition. Why would the government need to ban the competition if its so good at providing insurance?
  - aplummer 8y ago
    > Why would the government need to ban the competition if its so good at providing insurance? In no country ever is private healthcare and competition banned. There is a free* hospital across the street from me and I have private healthcare. It’s about acknowledging that a) it is cheaper for everyone if people with no money go to the doctor early, because a GP is 1k% less expensive to society than a hospital bed runout. This is one of the reasons healthcare in single payer countries is ~50% per capita. B) people without money don’t deserve to die because they are poor and should have basic treatments, even when it is their own fault they are poor and make bad decisions. * I pay tax which pays for the hospital
    - conanbatt 8y ago
      > In no country ever is private healthcare and competition banned. There is a free* hospital across the street from me and I have private healthcare. Thats not factually true: there are many places that ban private healthcare, including canada. Then there are other conditions that punish private disproportionately: like funding public healthcare with taxes, but private healthcare with private funds: that means a person would have to pay 2 insurances to get private services. Also single payer really means there is only 1 insurance, so yes, it bans all other insurances. > It’s about acknowledging that a) it is cheaper for everyone if people with no money go to the doctor early, because a GP is 1k% less expensive to society than a hospital bed runout. This is one of the reasons healthcare in single payer countries is ~50% per capita. There are multiple issues why healthcare in the US is more expensive than "single payer systems", and preventative medicine is a small part. > people without money don’t deserve to die because they are poor and should have basic treatments, even when it is their own fault they are poor and make bad decisions. Is this moral line of yours defined by the country? Because if you want to save people's lives, single payer systems are very expensive. Its a lot better to open immigration and bring poor people from abroad.
vertex-four 8y ago
Or, it’s an obligation on society to organise in such a way that healthcare is provided to anybody who needs it by whatever means you like. Taxes, charity, whatever else. Obligations are not per se unethical - the most basic one being not to cause harm to people in carrying out whatever you’re doing, but there’s many others - and current society uses taxes to ensure that their obligations are fulfilled, but there’s other options too.
aplummer 8y ago
This is an unrealistic absolutist argument in any realistic view of the modern world with actual governments especially given the extreme excess of resources on earth to provide everyone with good medical care. “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care…”[1] [1] Article 25 UN Declaration of Human Rights
- conanbatt 8y ago
  The right to acquire it or the right to get it from someone else?
  - aplummer 8y ago
    The right to it even if you are mentally ill, broke, bad at decision making or all of the above. My point is definitely that you have an obligation to provide society funding for healthcare even if they don’t pay. Just like the military will defend them even if they don’t pay, or a firefighter will put out their house.
    - conanbatt 8y ago
      > The right to it even if you are mentally ill, broke, bad at decision making or all of the above. The right to be provided something is the right to take from someone else. There is no escape to this, its a right that infringes on the right of others. Theft cannot be a human right, and i would strongly reject anyone that defends such a thing, including the UN.
      - aplummer 8y ago
        I understand now, when firefighters save homeless people, the homeless people are stealing from others. This thread is going nowhere, you clearly value money more than the health of people less fortunate than you. Systemic poverty and sick people, who cares right.