Myth 17: Health care reform will establish a right to health care.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009 at 12:51AM Everybody in a country with “universal health care” has a “right” to health care, but Americans do not—or so it is argued. “Health care reform” is supposed to correct a moral deficiency in the United States, and, at long last, grant a fundamental human right to Americans.
At present, Americans who have purchased insurance have a contractual right, enforceable in court, to whatever benefits are agreed to in the contract. Federal law entitles them to a screening examination and stabilization if they present to an emergency facility, even if they have no ability to pay—and the hospital and on-call physicians are obligated by law to provide the service.
In an American hospital, women in labor will be delivered; patients with a surgical emergency will have an operation; and patients with a life-threatening medical emergency will be admitted. But later, the hospital will try to collect payment. Americans have no right to receive medical services at taxpayer expense. Those enrolled in Medicare, Medicaid, or other government program have an entitlement to certain benefits, determined by politicians and bureaucrats. About half of U.S. medical expenditures are made by government through such programs.
How is the situation different under “universal health care”?
In Canada, patients are entitled to treatment only after they present their insurance card. If they lack a card, say because they are homeless and haven’t signed up for the program, treatment will be denied.
One man in Quebec forgot his card at home, and was denied care, even though his name was in their computer. No card, no service. When he went home to get the card, his appendix ruptured, and by the time the ambulance arrived, he was dead. At age 21. As Mark Steyn writes, “He didn’t make it to 22 because he accepted the right of a government bureaucrat to deny him medical treatment for which he and his family have been confiscatorially taxed all their lives.”
Under “universal health care,” one has no right to care that is timely, convenient, or state-of-the-art. Under a “single payer” (government-payer-only) system, one has no right to pay extra to allow the operating room, imaging center, or clinic to stay open longer—even though this would decrease the waiting time for everyone, including those who could not afford to pay more. One has the right to receive only the services that “society” (politicians and bureaucrats) has decided to make available.
Most nations of the world have a private sector that relieves some of the strain on the public system, though people who receive private services have paid twice for medical care—once for the public services that they do not use, and again for the care they do receive. Canada and North Korea have a single payer; Canadians have the right to pay twice if they go abroad for treatment.
Rights that Americans would lose under proposed reforms include: the right to buy true insurance, for which premiums are based on risk; the right to decline to buy a plan they don’t want; the right to self insure; the right to reap the benefits of healthful living, hard work, and prudent spending; and the right to keep their medical records confidential. If the reforms evolve into a single payer, as many advocates intend, Americans would lose the liberty to use their own property to prolong or enhance their own lives.
Obligations that reform would impose on Americans include: continually proving that they had paid for coverage that the federal government deems acceptable; paying what the government deems to be their “fair share” for insuring persons below a certain income threshold; paying for procedures they deem to be harmful or immoral if coverage is mandated by government; and paying for expanded, costly bureaucracy.
America’s extraordinary prosperity and technological progress occurred in an atmosphere of freedom. The losses resulting from a central chokehold on innovation are incalculable. Advocates of reform often attribute the high cost of American medicine to new drugs, devices, and procedures, and want still-heavier regulation to restrain these advances. Both Americans and the result of the world’s peoples will lose if America is no longer the engine of progress.
Americans are being asked to exchange their birthright of freedom for—politicians’ promises. And to trade their natural, God-given rights to life, liberty, and property for government-granted privileges or entitlements.
If you have to show a card that proves you are eligible to receive a certain service in a certain facility, you do not have a right, only a privilege. A privilege that can be revoked by bureaucrats calculating the gains and losses to “society” from your treatment.
People have come to trust their government entitlement programs, just as they once trusted Bernie Madoff. However, Americans have no constitutional or contractual right to their Social Security benefits, for which they have been taxed all their lives. This was established decades ago by the U.S. Supreme Court, in the case of a man who was deported for being a Communist after paying Social Security taxes for 19 years. In upholding the 1954 law that revoked the Social Security privilege for such persons, the Court cited the necessity of Section 1104 of the 1935 Act, entitled “Reservation of Power,” reads: “The right to alter, amend, or repeal any provision of this Act is hereby reserved to Congress.”
The Court ruled: “To engraft upon the Social Security system a concept of accrued property rights would deprive it of the flexibility and boldness in adjustment to ever- changing conditions which it demands....” (AAPS News, August 2008). Remember that Medicare is part of the Social Security Act.
Fundamental rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution must be abridged to grant a “right” to taxpayer-funded medical treatment. The tradeoff is of true rights for what is actually a privilege or entitlement.
What the government gives, the government can take away. And of course, whatever it gives was first taken from someone.
View Printer Friendly Version
Email Article to Friend
Reader Comments (12)
"Am I my brother's keeper?...' an age old reply to a Sovereign God when confronted with accountability from needs, love, protection but family entity and INNATE inviolable, human responsibility as NOONE lives on an island but humankind inclusive, American, Canadian, Asian, African etc, etc, etc,. etc in response to a DIVINE MANDATE to help and heal!
WE are accountable to God with the God given talents that we are loaned and entrusted by a Sovereign God!
it is therefore an inherent "OBLIGATION" by the endowed or owner to appropriate his talents unconditionally whatever the cost is involved!
IT is not the RIGHT of the recipient or those who are in NEED for our services and should NOT be withold when healing comes from the Author of Life!
Global CRISES under divine judgment is at hand when we violate such a DIVINE mandate and the current crisis will only bring us on our knees to a SOVEREIGN God in our decrepit, self centered pride and existence!!!
"The slothful shall not eat the bread of the laborer." "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's ..." Many scriptures also point to personal responsibility. We ARE obligated to help, but are farmer's giving away their crops to "feed the hungry"? Are clothing makers to give their wares away to "clothe the naked"? The Bible does not advocate socialism, only charity.
I'm happy to give my services occasionally for free. I'm resentful at being a slave. My skills aren't G-d given---I had to work my tail off to develop them, and I still sweat.
If I may, among the physicians, add a patient's point of view. I grew up poor, merely poor, with a working father not accepting any government welfare. In the 1950's my mother was quite ill and suffered for some time although we had very good community doctors who made house calls. My father took her to San Francisco where she had most of her stomach removed because of a large ulcer. She had an excellent surgeon, and because we could not pay, at no charge to my father. She went on to live to be 83. This has always been done and should physicians feel an obligation to provide their services to the needy, they could not provide those services were they not well compensated by those able to pay. I pray physicians do not get caught up in the minutia of this distrastrous legislation but stand your ground for the morality of capitalism. If not, we will have much more to worry about than our health when our freedom is ground in the dust.
The is a fundamental difference between being forced to give one's labor and giving it by voluntary and compassionate means. There is a big difference between a moral obligation and a legal obligation. A legal obligation explicitly uses force. No one, not even doctors, would like to have their labor forcibly distracted from them. This is not medicine, but human nature.
Once the government forces a doctor to work, the government has undermined the spirit of America.
Moreover, where is the enumerated power in the Constitution that allows the federal government to regulate healthcare? This power is not listed, and is therefore reserved to the states.
Although we do need to address the problems in health care, I am dead set against it being mandated by the govenment. They have not even tried the common sense solutins already offfered. The present adminsitration is bound and determined to rewtie the constitution and take away our liberty. They mayh or not have pure motives but the hidden agenda is POWER
Mark Steyn makes an excellent point: A right to health COVERAGE is far different than a right to health CARE. In fact, every occupant of the US currently has a right to health care, at least in emergency situations, granted under EMTALA*. As a physician, I can attest to having delivered my services on hundreds of occasions regardless of an individual's ability to pay. However, when you encounter a future of health care bureaucrats do not expect the same level of compassion, common sense, motivation or care.
BNK
*EMTALA= Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act
This is just another way for the government to have control over us. It is all about controlling the population, while keeping those working and paying taxes working by providing better medical service to them while others, such as senior citizens and those that are disabled who are not paying taxes will be counciled into ending it all and not being a burden on the government and their families. It is a shame that our great country has come to this. I can't believe that their are
so many naive people in this country to trust the government.
It is shown clearly here that God can be used in many different ways. Used as an excuse to do or not to do with just as much passion shown in each case. the truth to me is "we are our brothers keeper" without believing that we are nothing not even equal to the majority of animals which do work in many cases as their brother keeper. I am a Canadian and Health Care in Canada is the right of every citizen, not because we are what the American media continually call us Socialists but because we believe that it is the obligation of every one of us to see that we are all treated equally and with compassion. It strikes me that something is fundamentally wrong when the United States constitution protects the right to gun ownership but not the right to health care. It would seem that the founding fathers of America felt the need to be able to kill was more important that the need to heal. God bless Canada
I'm interested that so many seem to think that this reform will mean Drs are not going to get paid for their services. Countries that are held up as examples of single payer or government run systems still pay their doctors, hospitals and staff--it's ridiculous to allude that they don't. There is nothing written in the proposed reforms which alludes to doctors being forced to work for free--in fact doctors and hospitals are more likely to get paid rather than having to pursue patients into bankruptcy--as so often happens in the current system. It seems to me that it is not doctors nor patients who will suffer under any proposed changes--only insurance companies and ancillary staff. How is that a bad thing? What's more, doctors might even see an increase in business as those for whom cost is a significant factor would no longer have to weigh how essential treatment can be.
ALL I HAVE TO SAY IS THE GOVERNMENT CANNOT BE TRUSTED THE BIBLE WARNS US NOT TO TRUST THE GOVERNMENT TO TAKE CARE OF US .I DON'T LIKE THE GOVERNMENT RUNNING OUR LIFE'S
I worked at a hospital in upstate NY. We had several Canadian doctors who worked in the ED. When I asked them why, I was told that their gov't salary was approx $60,000 per year in Canada. That is rather pathetic reimbursement for a person who has to complete at least 23rd grade to be board certified. That is what will happen here if the government controls all reimbursement. This will lead to those with brains opting to become lawyers or MBAs, not physicians.