Augmented Post

Sometimes I have more to say, even if I don't have a quote to bounce it off of.

There is a small (or perhaps minuscule) effort to characterize the current debate over the need for universal health care as the attempt to institute physician slavery. This is a rather unique way of putting it but I think it comes off wrong unless what is being said is understood from a very basic level. I'd like to provide that understanding.

First we need for you to understand that health care is not a right. If you understand then skip this part.

Is Health Care a Right?: No, it most definitely is not. Like food and shelter it is a necessity, but not a right. Please do not confuse the two. To adopt the position that these are rights would mean that some other individual would have to give up their individual rights in order to provide them. You have then violated their true rightful rights. If you declare food to be a right then you just trampled the farmer's rights to do as he (or she) sees fit with their crop. If you tell the farmer, you must provide these crops to the less fortunate then you have just made him (or her) a slave. You are telling them what they have to do at the point of a gun. Now this doesn't mean that the less fortunate individual is forced into starvation. They are welcome to get a job and pay the farmer for the food. They are welcome to start a business; make a profit; spend their profit to feed their family. They are welcome to go to any number of private charities which provide food (and counseling). They can go to family or friends for assistance. If they have no family or friends then they are welcome to change their ways. The alternative is to declare food as a right, or as in the the USA, an almost right, which will lead to the downside you see everywhere here; poverty leads to obesity.

So if health care isn't really a right but we treat it as such what happens? Anytime you declare something a right that isn't then what you are doing is violating someone else's rights (legitimate rights). If you make healthcare a right then you must demand from doctors service which they perhaps would not offer otherwise.Or, you may prevent a doctor from providing a service he normally would provide.

Making healthcare a right will also necessitate compensating all doctors the same for a given service. Does it make sense to pay the best the same as the worst? So much for rewarding excellence.

But, back to the term Physician Slavery. Slavery is a loss of Liberty.  Liberty is being free of governmental restriction. Universal healthcare means loss of Liberty for doctors. The healthcare bills before Congress can all be described as Physician Slavery bills. Perhaps using this terminology will get the discussion back to where it belongs - to a discussion of morality and principles.

The Bard Speaks the Truth

This above all: to thine own self be true; And it must follow, as the night the day; Thou canst not then be false to any man. - William Shakespeare


I've heard the first part a million times but never the last part. How come?


(Other posts on Honesty)

Living in Generalities

We think in generalities, but we live in detail. - Alfred North Whitehead


Most of us live in detail - those that live in generalities are regarded as the artsy type.


(Other posts on Art)

Pragmatism

Bragging you are a pragmatist is the same as bragging you are unprincipled. - Lyle


(Other posts on Morals)