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Should access to healthcare be a basic human right?
voted interesting: jasoncalacanis M$1.00, jeffhoard M$5.34, angela_atkinson M$0.25
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Whenever you think about whether something should be a right, ask "at whose expense?" We have a right to our lives, our property, and free trade. Having the right to life, property, and the ability to trade does not cost anyone else anything.
If one person has a right to health care, then someone else must be forced to treat him and pay for the treatment. Creating a right to health care actually removes freedoms from others and gives a person in need of health care the ability to enslave another to meet his own needs. If someone cannot afford treatment, then he must rely on charity. It may sound harsh, but it is unjust to force people to pay for the lives of others.
If one person has a right to health care, then someone else must be forced to treat him and pay for the treatment. Creating a right to health care actually removes freedoms from others and gives a person in need of health care the ability to enslave another to meet his own needs. If someone cannot afford treatment, then he must rely on charity. It may sound harsh, but it is unjust to force people to pay for the lives of others.
Voted as best: mysterygirl89, unwirklich
Absolutely. Daily, you use roads you never paid for, internets you didn't establish, air from plants you didn't photosynthesize. We are a community of beings dependant on each other.
And if one of those beings is suffering, and needs our assistance, say they have a brain tumor but can't find a full time job. Can we really live with ourselves knowing we let them die?
There is a cost, we should all pay a part to allow people who truly need help to get help.
And if one of those beings is suffering, and needs our assistance, say they have a brain tumor but can't find a full time job. Can we really live with ourselves knowing we let them die?
There is a cost, we should all pay a part to allow people who truly need help to get help.
voted helpful: lilyloretta, kty2777
Voted as best: lrig
I totally agree. We should all voluntarily help those around us who are in need. What we should not do is take money from others by force to help those in need. Charity, not compulsion, is the way to help those around us. Do good with your money: not with other people's.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2Kg2SvsI8Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2Kg2SvsI8Q
I fail to see how paying for community medical expenses is any worse than paying for community roads. These are things one needs to live a healthy happy life. Matter of fact, roads are more of a luxury than medical assistance. You can survive without them.
@konsiders, I totally agree. We should not force people to pay for roads that they do not want or use. If we make every road a toll road, then if you want to use the roads, you pay the toll. It would reduce taxes and possibly reduce use of vehicles.
I wouldn't say it's a fundamental human right, but universal healthcare should be a feature of a modern society. Fundamentally, universal healthcare takes the perspective of preventative medicine, and in the long run is cheaper than non-insured patients making emergency room visits (as happens in the U.S. today).
Countries like Japan have universal healthcare at half the cost of the the current non-universal heath care system in the U.S. There are certainly questions in the quality, but Japan has about 50% less infant mortality than the U.S. and performs 100% more MRIs per patient than U.S. hospitals. The secret is that there are very few middlemen in the Japanese system, the government works directly with hospitals and doctors, whereas middlemen are rife in the U.S. healthcare system.
Modern society attempts to balance personal freedoms with structures that benefit all of society. Universal healthcare, if done right, benefits the population as a whole and can cost much less than what we're paying in the U.S.
Countries like Japan have universal healthcare at half the cost of the the current non-universal heath care system in the U.S. There are certainly questions in the quality, but Japan has about 50% less infant mortality than the U.S. and performs 100% more MRIs per patient than U.S. hospitals. The secret is that there are very few middlemen in the Japanese system, the government works directly with hospitals and doctors, whereas middlemen are rife in the U.S. healthcare system.
Modern society attempts to balance personal freedoms with structures that benefit all of society. Universal healthcare, if done right, benefits the population as a whole and can cost much less than what we're paying in the U.S.
voted helpful: opher
There is no doubt in my mind that the right to have access to free universal healthcare should be a international right. Health comes before all; life, liberty and freedom. If you don't have health, whats the point in having oppotunities, and being free?
Healthcare and drugs are the BIGGEST two businesses in America, and pull in the most profit compared to all. People will pay whatever they possibly can to be healthy, and it is absolutley NOT fair that people suffer everyday due to unaffordable healthcare. These companies do no good, its just big business in the capitalist world we live in, and they do benefit from sick people. It is absolute insanity, and in my opinion should be the only business that should be strictly gouvernment owned.
Healthcare and drugs are the BIGGEST two businesses in America, and pull in the most profit compared to all. People will pay whatever they possibly can to be healthy, and it is absolutley NOT fair that people suffer everyday due to unaffordable healthcare. These companies do no good, its just big business in the capitalist world we live in, and they do benefit from sick people. It is absolute insanity, and in my opinion should be the only business that should be strictly gouvernment owned.
@mattanswer, your argument "If you don't have health, whats the point in having opportunities, and being free? " could as easily be applied to a right to be happy: "If you don't have happiness, whats the point in having opportunities, and being free?"
First, all the healthcare in the would does not guarantee health. Second, who is going to pay for it? Eventually you run out of other people's money. When that happens, government rations, and we're back to people not having good treatment. We all would like everyone to be healthy, but in this world, there is sickness, crime, poverty, unhappiness, etc. We can help those around us who need help, but no government can create a nation that is healthy, kind, rich, and happy.
First, all the healthcare in the would does not guarantee health. Second, who is going to pay for it? Eventually you run out of other people's money. When that happens, government rations, and we're back to people not having good treatment. We all would like everyone to be healthy, but in this world, there is sickness, crime, poverty, unhappiness, etc. We can help those around us who need help, but no government can create a nation that is healthy, kind, rich, and happy.
The first thing people need to understand is that actually, there's no such thing as "human rights" per se.
It's a set of concepts of how people should allow each other to be, and when each other should come to each others' aid, IN ORDER TO GET ALONG AND SHARE THE PLANET", that have been articulated and described and then mutually agreed upon by everyone from Inuit to Australian Aborigines as being self-evident.
The concept of human rights only has sense within the social context of there being other humans that you must share some space and resources with. If humans were like bears, an animal with no social instinct, then the concept of a "human right" would make no sense at all.
In other words, "human rights" are codified norms of mutually agreed-upon-and-expected conduct and behavior, which means they are based upon *consensus* of how to "get along", which means...
... How best to optimize the natural desires to express individual proclivities on one side while not being a hindrance nor an encumbrance to those you are sharing space and resources with.
The first great universal principal of "getting along" was "Do unto others that which you would have them do unto you", and it has the highest *consensus* of any principal we have.
That principal is found in *all* human cultures and societies from the north-pole to the south-pole, even when they have had no contact with each other for 17,000 years (the time since native Americans had contact with the old world) and even back 40,000 years (the last time Australian Aborigines had contact with the old world).
Curiously, although not illogically, that was never codified as a self-evident "human right", and that's because some people are so mentally whacked out past Pluto in terms of what they would like others to do to them, i.e. Masochists, that if one were to make the Golden Rule a Human Right, it would give them the right to go around whipping strangers, which means, when it comes to the codification of a Human Right, there actually isn't anything outside of human existence in Plato's Universe of the Ideal Forms that defines and absolute Human Right...
... It's purely a codified agreement based on consensus.
Which means... Universal Health Care CAN BE a HUMAN RIGHT.. IF WE SAY IT IS! All people have to do is SAY IT IS!
(cont. in first Reply...)
It's a set of concepts of how people should allow each other to be, and when each other should come to each others' aid, IN ORDER TO GET ALONG AND SHARE THE PLANET", that have been articulated and described and then mutually agreed upon by everyone from Inuit to Australian Aborigines as being self-evident.
The concept of human rights only has sense within the social context of there being other humans that you must share some space and resources with. If humans were like bears, an animal with no social instinct, then the concept of a "human right" would make no sense at all.
In other words, "human rights" are codified norms of mutually agreed-upon-and-expected conduct and behavior, which means they are based upon *consensus* of how to "get along", which means...
... How best to optimize the natural desires to express individual proclivities on one side while not being a hindrance nor an encumbrance to those you are sharing space and resources with.
The first great universal principal of "getting along" was "Do unto others that which you would have them do unto you", and it has the highest *consensus* of any principal we have.
That principal is found in *all* human cultures and societies from the north-pole to the south-pole, even when they have had no contact with each other for 17,000 years (the time since native Americans had contact with the old world) and even back 40,000 years (the last time Australian Aborigines had contact with the old world).
Curiously, although not illogically, that was never codified as a self-evident "human right", and that's because some people are so mentally whacked out past Pluto in terms of what they would like others to do to them, i.e. Masochists, that if one were to make the Golden Rule a Human Right, it would give them the right to go around whipping strangers, which means, when it comes to the codification of a Human Right, there actually isn't anything outside of human existence in Plato's Universe of the Ideal Forms that defines and absolute Human Right...
... It's purely a codified agreement based on consensus.
Which means... Universal Health Care CAN BE a HUMAN RIGHT.. IF WE SAY IT IS! All people have to do is SAY IT IS!
(cont. in first Reply...)
voted helpful: buddawiggi
(... cont. from Answer)
What makes free speech a right? It's because people said it is. What makes a right to bear arms a right? Because people said it is.
If you want universal access to health care be a right... then just say it is, and it is so.
Now... some people think that "rights" have to be things that "cost nothing". That's so ridiculous on so many levels I hardly know where to start, but for openers, what do you want to bet those same people believe in a right to bear arms, even though said right gives the US a murder rate ten times that of any other industrialized democracy. Do you really think it's not *costing* anything in terms of lost productivity and extra security - and that's just financial costs... we haven't even touched on the emotional costs.
That "right" to bear arms comes with a price, so you can't define a "right" in terms of it not costing anyone anything.
I could go on, but what really gets my gizzard is how those people who think they should not be "shouldered" with sharing the "cost" of helping heal someone who's too sick to heal themselves cannot see that in the big picture and in the long run, they are making their own overall cost of living cheaper by sharing the cost of treating people too sick to treat themselves.
People like that tend to operate according to the lame notion of life being a "zero-sum game", wherein they delude themselves into thinking that for every winner there has to be a looser.
That's stupid, because if that's really how economies worked, then humans never would have got beyond the level of doing tug-a-war over mammoth tusks and up to the levels of cooperative behavior required to build pyramids.
And it's always those same "zero-sum game"ers who think that they should not have to share the cost of treating someone too sick to treat themselves.
Suppose you're a zero-sum gamer, and you've got a teacher who's going to teach you something that will be vital to your ability to succeed in business, like how to calculate the annuities on the line of credit required to maintain your inventory, and that teacher gets sick.
According to the zero-sum gaming I'm-not-paying-for-someone-else's care-so-if-they-cannot-heal-themselves-or-if-they-didn't-save-enough-to-pay-someone-else-to-do-it-then-they-can-die people, the student should stand back and let the teacher die, which means now the student will not know how to do something vital to operate his business...
... which means now he's going to be poorer than he would have been if he'd helped the teacher to survive.
You might not be able to track the path of exchange from hand-to-hand of every nickel in your nation, but in fact your personal material purchasing power becomes greater in the long run if the people you are sharing your society with can be got back to health and on their feet as fast as possible.
Australians, Austrians, British, Belgians, Canadians, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, Germans, Italians, Japanese, Koreans, New Zealanders, Norwegians, Singaporean, Spanish, Swedish, Taiwanese, all did the arithmetic and realized that they were *saving money*, not just as a society, but as individuals when it came to their paycheck - in the long run... not in the short-quarterly number seen only by shareholders, but by people who work for their money - to share the cost of treating people too sick to treat themselves.
If a soldier gets wounded in the field, do you leave him to die and go recruit someone else from the unemployment line? No... it costs too much to train those guys.
In the US, on average, states spend $5000 per student per year to cover the cost of public education. That means by the time they've graduated, you as a tax-payer have already invested $60,000 in each of those - who will be running things when you're too old - just to the point of finishing high school, and now you're saying that if they step on a nail and get blood poisoning and they didn't have the money for some antibiotics, then they can just die for all you care, even though that was the person who was going to be changing your diapers when you're in the nursing home.
So, on purely financial grounds, with no consideration for the human capacity for humanity, it makes sense to have universal access to health care when somebody needs it for economic reasons.
But let's talk about "humanity" and what makes for a natural "human right".
Going back to the beginning, when we were all hunter-gatherers, there was no presumption of "life" being a natural "right". In fact, if you were a pest, they'd just kill you.
Likewise, there was no presumption of "property" being a natural "right". If you wanted to be in control of some piece of material or land, then your "rights" was 100% dependent upon your ability to stop someone from taking it away.
And there was no presumption of "free trade" being a natural right. If you were caught trading flint arrow heads to the enemy for some fish, you would be killed.
But what they *did* have was a *natural sense* of caring for each other when one of their own was sick.
That natural sense is one of the edges that gave our line of hominid an advantage.
If you go back about a million years - way before neanderthals... to a time when brain capacity was about equal to that of an 8-10 year old - you see the hominid line split into Homo Erectus and Homo Mauritanicus, and it was Homo Mauritanicus who were our ancestors.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/db/Humanevolutionchart.jpg/543px-Humanevolutionchart.jpg
Homo Erectus were brutes compared to Homo Mauritanicus... they were bigger and stronger and their skulls were thicker and their brain-cases hardened at an earlier age - and what we find in the charcoal pits of Homo Erectus is rampant cannibalism. As far as they were concerned, a person with a broken wrist and therefore incapable of defending himself was dinner.
But Homo Mauritanicus would care for their sick... and eventually, the power of being able to gang up with experienced leaders who'd survived combat because they were given some care while healing enabled them to take that experience back into combat against the Homo Erectus to conquer them.
So you want to talk about a "natural" human right? It's in our *nature* to care for each other when sick.
It's not in our nature to freely trade away our capacity to work industriously... but some people thing *that* should be an inalienable right.
We can reach consensus and agree to codify laws like "free speech" as "rights" when in fact those are not really rights that are natural to the species...
And yet, we cannot codify as a right something that *has* been a natural behavior of our species towards each other for at least a million years?!?
If you think that there's something wrong with making it a codified principal to do something that is in our nature and was key to enabling us to conquer the Homo Erectus, while insisting that it has to be a codified right to freely trade away your ability to protect yourself and maintain industry, then...
... then...
... Hmm... have you been doing voodoo or something like that, such that a Homo Erectus spirit has drilled itself into your skull and taken over your brain?
An agreement between each other to take care of each other when we're too sick to care for ourselves is the most *natural* right that any legal mind could ever think of codifying...
And it's just a small handful of extremely rich shareholders of stock in private heath-insurance companies who don't want it to happen, because that would mean they could only be super-rich instead of insanely-rich.
What makes free speech a right? It's because people said it is. What makes a right to bear arms a right? Because people said it is.
If you want universal access to health care be a right... then just say it is, and it is so.
Now... some people think that "rights" have to be things that "cost nothing". That's so ridiculous on so many levels I hardly know where to start, but for openers, what do you want to bet those same people believe in a right to bear arms, even though said right gives the US a murder rate ten times that of any other industrialized democracy. Do you really think it's not *costing* anything in terms of lost productivity and extra security - and that's just financial costs... we haven't even touched on the emotional costs.
That "right" to bear arms comes with a price, so you can't define a "right" in terms of it not costing anyone anything.
I could go on, but what really gets my gizzard is how those people who think they should not be "shouldered" with sharing the "cost" of helping heal someone who's too sick to heal themselves cannot see that in the big picture and in the long run, they are making their own overall cost of living cheaper by sharing the cost of treating people too sick to treat themselves.
People like that tend to operate according to the lame notion of life being a "zero-sum game", wherein they delude themselves into thinking that for every winner there has to be a looser.
That's stupid, because if that's really how economies worked, then humans never would have got beyond the level of doing tug-a-war over mammoth tusks and up to the levels of cooperative behavior required to build pyramids.
And it's always those same "zero-sum game"ers who think that they should not have to share the cost of treating someone too sick to treat themselves.
Suppose you're a zero-sum gamer, and you've got a teacher who's going to teach you something that will be vital to your ability to succeed in business, like how to calculate the annuities on the line of credit required to maintain your inventory, and that teacher gets sick.
According to the zero-sum gaming I'm-not-paying-for-someone-else's care-so-if-they-cannot-heal-themselves-or-if-they-didn't-save-enough-to-pay-someone-else-to-do-it-then-they-can-die people, the student should stand back and let the teacher die, which means now the student will not know how to do something vital to operate his business...
... which means now he's going to be poorer than he would have been if he'd helped the teacher to survive.
You might not be able to track the path of exchange from hand-to-hand of every nickel in your nation, but in fact your personal material purchasing power becomes greater in the long run if the people you are sharing your society with can be got back to health and on their feet as fast as possible.
Australians, Austrians, British, Belgians, Canadians, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, Germans, Italians, Japanese, Koreans, New Zealanders, Norwegians, Singaporean, Spanish, Swedish, Taiwanese, all did the arithmetic and realized that they were *saving money*, not just as a society, but as individuals when it came to their paycheck - in the long run... not in the short-quarterly number seen only by shareholders, but by people who work for their money - to share the cost of treating people too sick to treat themselves.
If a soldier gets wounded in the field, do you leave him to die and go recruit someone else from the unemployment line? No... it costs too much to train those guys.
In the US, on average, states spend $5000 per student per year to cover the cost of public education. That means by the time they've graduated, you as a tax-payer have already invested $60,000 in each of those - who will be running things when you're too old - just to the point of finishing high school, and now you're saying that if they step on a nail and get blood poisoning and they didn't have the money for some antibiotics, then they can just die for all you care, even though that was the person who was going to be changing your diapers when you're in the nursing home.
So, on purely financial grounds, with no consideration for the human capacity for humanity, it makes sense to have universal access to health care when somebody needs it for economic reasons.
But let's talk about "humanity" and what makes for a natural "human right".
Going back to the beginning, when we were all hunter-gatherers, there was no presumption of "life" being a natural "right". In fact, if you were a pest, they'd just kill you.
Likewise, there was no presumption of "property" being a natural "right". If you wanted to be in control of some piece of material or land, then your "rights" was 100% dependent upon your ability to stop someone from taking it away.
And there was no presumption of "free trade" being a natural right. If you were caught trading flint arrow heads to the enemy for some fish, you would be killed.
But what they *did* have was a *natural sense* of caring for each other when one of their own was sick.
That natural sense is one of the edges that gave our line of hominid an advantage.
If you go back about a million years - way before neanderthals... to a time when brain capacity was about equal to that of an 8-10 year old - you see the hominid line split into Homo Erectus and Homo Mauritanicus, and it was Homo Mauritanicus who were our ancestors.
Homo Erectus were brutes compared to Homo Mauritanicus... they were bigger and stronger and their skulls were thicker and their brain-cases hardened at an earlier age - and what we find in the charcoal pits of Homo Erectus is rampant cannibalism. As far as they were concerned, a person with a broken wrist and therefore incapable of defending himself was dinner.
But Homo Mauritanicus would care for their sick... and eventually, the power of being able to gang up with experienced leaders who'd survived combat because they were given some care while healing enabled them to take that experience back into combat against the Homo Erectus to conquer them.
So you want to talk about a "natural" human right? It's in our *nature* to care for each other when sick.
It's not in our nature to freely trade away our capacity to work industriously... but some people thing *that* should be an inalienable right.
We can reach consensus and agree to codify laws like "free speech" as "rights" when in fact those are not really rights that are natural to the species...
And yet, we cannot codify as a right something that *has* been a natural behavior of our species towards each other for at least a million years?!?
If you think that there's something wrong with making it a codified principal to do something that is in our nature and was key to enabling us to conquer the Homo Erectus, while insisting that it has to be a codified right to freely trade away your ability to protect yourself and maintain industry, then...
... then...
... Hmm... have you been doing voodoo or something like that, such that a Homo Erectus spirit has drilled itself into your skull and taken over your brain?
An agreement between each other to take care of each other when we're too sick to care for ourselves is the most *natural* right that any legal mind could ever think of codifying...
And it's just a small handful of extremely rich shareholders of stock in private heath-insurance companies who don't want it to happen, because that would mean they could only be super-rich instead of insanely-rich.
Access,yes, free healthcare NO!!!
Nobody should have anything handed to them. Some of us work very hard to afford healthcare.Others sit home on their hind ends collecting welfare and medicaid.Do they have a right to do that?
These people feel that they have the right to do nothing and get everything.WHY give them all this for nothing.
It angers me deeply that anyone should feel entitled to this whole free healthcare thing. GET A JOB!!!
Nobody should have anything handed to them. Some of us work very hard to afford healthcare.Others sit home on their hind ends collecting welfare and medicaid.Do they have a right to do that?
These people feel that they have the right to do nothing and get everything.WHY give them all this for nothing.
It angers me deeply that anyone should feel entitled to this whole free healthcare thing. GET A JOB!!!
Move to China. They think that health care should be a user-pay service.
Mind you... they're trying to get their population down from 1.4 billion to an idea 600-700 million, and user-pay health care is one of the more effective ways to get more people to die, and to keep the mortality rate of children high.
You do know, of course, that the US has the highest infant mortality rate among all the industrialized democracies?
I bet the people wanting their kids to die of disease because their parents didn't have any money are the same ones who think it's murder to abort an embryo.
In any case, you logic is flawed, because you're thinking other people should die if they cannot afford private health insurance because you currently have to "work so hard" to pay for that (overpriced by world standards) insurance, which means, you're suffering from the financial burden of private health insurance, so you want everyone else who is not suffering like you to either start suffering like you, or *die*.
Would you still insist on feeling the same way if you didn't have to break your budget paying for overpriced private health insurance?
Or... do you just like it when people suffer?
You like suffering to work hard to pay for overpriced (by western industrialized-nation standards) private health insurance, and you like watching other people suffer and die if they can't suffer like you do to pay for your overpriced insurance, and if that avatar pic is of you at your wedding, then you married a masochist who loves being whipped and having the pointy tip of high heals dug into his eyes... right?
Mind you... they're trying to get their population down from 1.4 billion to an idea 600-700 million, and user-pay health care is one of the more effective ways to get more people to die, and to keep the mortality rate of children high.
You do know, of course, that the US has the highest infant mortality rate among all the industrialized democracies?
I bet the people wanting their kids to die of disease because their parents didn't have any money are the same ones who think it's murder to abort an embryo.
In any case, you logic is flawed, because you're thinking other people should die if they cannot afford private health insurance because you currently have to "work so hard" to pay for that (overpriced by world standards) insurance, which means, you're suffering from the financial burden of private health insurance, so you want everyone else who is not suffering like you to either start suffering like you, or *die*.
Would you still insist on feeling the same way if you didn't have to break your budget paying for overpriced private health insurance?
Or... do you just like it when people suffer?
You like suffering to work hard to pay for overpriced (by western industrialized-nation standards) private health insurance, and you like watching other people suffer and die if they can't suffer like you do to pay for your overpriced insurance, and if that avatar pic is of you at your wedding, then you married a masochist who loves being whipped and having the pointy tip of high heals dug into his eyes... right?
No ,You are wrong!
I assume that YOU do not have private pay insurance? That would be the only reason for your attack on anyone who disagrees with your opinion. No our budget is not broken by our healthcare plan.We are just fine.
I am just tired of seeing all the scum that decides to not work so they get the state and government to pay for them to live.
I assume that YOU do not have private pay insurance? That would be the only reason for your attack on anyone who disagrees with your opinion. No our budget is not broken by our healthcare plan.We are just fine.
I am just tired of seeing all the scum that decides to not work so they get the state and government to pay for them to live.
No, I don't think that access to health care is a basic human right, for the reason that for something to be a basic human right it cannot impinge on the rights of others.
Lets say the government decides *access* to health care is a basic human right. What if there are not enough doctors to go around? Then, in order for the government to do its job of securing the rights of its citizens, it has to provide more doctors. If incentives to enter the medical field still do not furnish enough, it has to draft them. If someone is drafted into a profession he/she has no interest in, the government has taken away their right to liberty and infringed upon their pursuit of happiness.
For something to be a right, it has to be capable of being secured for everyone without taking away any right of another person. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness all satisfy this requirement. To secure them, the government needs only make laws that prohibit other people from taking certain actions (murder, theft, etc...).
Lets say the government decides *access* to health care is a basic human right. What if there are not enough doctors to go around? Then, in order for the government to do its job of securing the rights of its citizens, it has to provide more doctors. If incentives to enter the medical field still do not furnish enough, it has to draft them. If someone is drafted into a profession he/she has no interest in, the government has taken away their right to liberty and infringed upon their pursuit of happiness.
For something to be a right, it has to be capable of being secured for everyone without taking away any right of another person. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness all satisfy this requirement. To secure them, the government needs only make laws that prohibit other people from taking certain actions (murder, theft, etc...).
Uh huh... right... and have you really thought about what the "Life" part of those three US "rights" can mean?
Remember, in the US, the legal system is not based upon the principal of Common Law, where judicial interpretations of the law are done according to the common understanding and intent of the law as perceived by the citizens.
Rather, it's based upon the concept of Civil Code, which means interpretations of the law are done according to a deductive process according to a set of premises, which means it boils down to a strict definition of the meanings of words, such that the justice meted out by a judgment in no way is required to have an justice in it, nor be common-sensible, which means...
Technically, according to the meaning of the word "Life", if there exists a method to extend or sustain it, and that method is denied to some people, but not others, the it is a violation of that US declaration of rights.
Remember, in the US, the legal system is not based upon the principal of Common Law, where judicial interpretations of the law are done according to the common understanding and intent of the law as perceived by the citizens.
Rather, it's based upon the concept of Civil Code, which means interpretations of the law are done according to a deductive process according to a set of premises, which means it boils down to a strict definition of the meanings of words, such that the justice meted out by a judgment in no way is required to have an justice in it, nor be common-sensible, which means...
Technically, according to the meaning of the word "Life", if there exists a method to extend or sustain it, and that method is denied to some people, but not others, the it is a violation of that US declaration of rights.
Providing access to health care does not guarantee life, but it can infringe freedom. Making murder illegal and having a police force in place to enforce that law does protect life, without harming the freedom of non-murderous citizens.
I certainly do not think there should be any laws prohibiting access to health care, nor can I think of any that I would support harming its free dissemination (there are currently laws to that effect, such bans on interstate sale of health insurance).
Laws against murder are already in place, so a good step for the government to take to help further the protection of life would be to repeal some of the regulations that are making the proliferation of medical insurance problematic.
I certainly do not think there should be any laws prohibiting access to health care, nor can I think of any that I would support harming its free dissemination (there are currently laws to that effect, such bans on interstate sale of health insurance).
Laws against murder are already in place, so a good step for the government to take to help further the protection of life would be to repeal some of the regulations that are making the proliferation of medical insurance problematic.
It is a recognized HUMAN RIGHT already
Answers should refer to the UN Declaration of Human Rights 1948, the relevant section is quoted below
Article 25.
* (1) 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 and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
* (2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.
It is too limiting to refer to this in a country-orientated manner, whether the US is in the middle of this debate or not, access to basic medical care is ALREADY a recognised human right - some countries just haven't enacted domestic legislation which corresponds to the UN declaration.
Take the time to read the Declaration and you'll be amazed at how comprehensive it is.
Answers should refer to the UN Declaration of Human Rights 1948, the relevant section is quoted below
Article 25.
* (1) 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 and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
* (2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.
It is too limiting to refer to this in a country-orientated manner, whether the US is in the middle of this debate or not, access to basic medical care is ALREADY a recognised human right - some countries just haven't enacted domestic legislation which corresponds to the UN declaration.
Take the time to read the Declaration and you'll be amazed at how comprehensive it is.
voted helpful: psionandy
Voted as best: theenlightened
The question is should it be a basic human right, not whether the UN recognizes it to be.
The UN didn't make up the Declaration. It was agreed by many nation states. That is the world has already agreed access to health care is a basic human right, I think you are confusing the question with what's happening in the US, rather than asking if it is about humanity as a whole - in that case how couldn't it be a right?
Very strange way of looking at human rights....
Very strange way of looking at human rights....
Yes it should be a basic human right, Roosevelt actually was going to impliment a 2nd bill of rights in the constitution that was updated for modern times, this was in the mid 1940's unfortunately he died before it was implimented, we were so close to having so many basic rights covered here is what Roosevelt said (notice he clearly states that all citizens should have the basic right to health care as without it we could not "pursue happiness"... remember happiness that other basic human right in the US constitution.
"It is our duty now to begin to lay the plans and determine the strategy for the winning of a lasting peace and the establishment of an American standard of living higher than ever before known. We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people—whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth—is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure.
This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights—among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and liberty.
As our nation has grown in size and stature, however—as our industrial economy expanded—these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.
We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. “Necessitous men are not free men.” People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.
In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all—regardless of station, race, or creed.
Among these are:
The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation; The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
The right of every family to a decent home;
The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
The right to a good education.
All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.
America’s own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for our citizens.
"It is our duty now to begin to lay the plans and determine the strategy for the winning of a lasting peace and the establishment of an American standard of living higher than ever before known. We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people—whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth—is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure.
This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights—among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and liberty.
As our nation has grown in size and stature, however—as our industrial economy expanded—these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.
We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. “Necessitous men are not free men.” People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.
In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all—regardless of station, race, or creed.
Among these are:
The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation; The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
The right of every family to a decent home;
The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
The right to a good education.
All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.
America’s own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for our citizens.
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The right to property is only ours if we buy that property, that is the complete opposite of free.
The right to free trade has destroyed many businesses, some of those businesses were doing real good for the world, so it cost people something.
Nothing comes for free.
Are you suggesting that we don't have the right to our lives, our possessions, and to trade? We are completely right-less in your view?
So... where did you learn the Orwellian double-speak trick of changing the constitutional declaration of the rights of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" to "life, property, and free trade"?
Someone's been spoon-feeding you globalist free-trader propaganda, and you've been swallowing it, and it shows you don't understand and have never studied how macro-economics works.
Further, your ideology is actually self-contradictory, because it is the ideology of a cancer cell, which believes it has the right to be free and take care of only itself as long as it's not secreting toxins to poison the cells around it, but it does eventually kill them when it kills the body, and your policies will kill a nation, which will cause many, many citizens to die of starvation and exposure.
Do you *rally* think the definition of a "right" is solely based upon whether or not it is costing someone else something?
Okay... that means you think the US has no right to exist, because all of it is based on seizing lands and taking it from the people who were here already... costing them their property, and lives (i.e. the march of tears that was forced on the Cherokee)...
By your way of thinking, the US is an illegitimate entity with no right to exist.
As for life, liberty, pursuit of happiness vs. life, property rights, and the right to free trade, life is in both. Liberty should mean the right to buy, sell, and earn, thus the right to free trade, and most people pursue happiness through use of their money, possessions, property (whether giving money to charity, enjoying great food, buying electronics). Without the right to keep the property we earn (our money, our food, our homes, our electronics), how do we pursue happiness or have liberty? If I make a pie, and you say, "You don't have the right to that property. I will take it," then I do not have liberty and I cannot pursue happiness.
Each person has the right to his own life, his own property, and the right to trade with others. No person has the right to steal the life or property of another, or to infringe on another's ability to trade. As for the U.S. and the Native Americans, I am not going to attempt to tackle the history of that. I will only say that one person does not have the right to the life and property of another. If that means that the U.S. should not have done with it did, so be it.
Even if charity is not enough (which I am not convince of), it is still wrong to forcibly take money from people to make up for it. The ends do not justify the means. If they did, we would legalize shooting litterbugs on sight to motivate cleaning up the planet.