# Is health care a fundemental right? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 13, 2003, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-health-care-a-fundemental-right/194805 "2003-08-13T02:20:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2003, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-health-care-a-fundemental-right/194805/61 "2003-08-14T12:32:31Z")
Think about it: if you’re paying insurance, you’re “forced to help pay for less healthy people”. Just through a different mechanism. ---
**Author:** ![bayonet1976](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/77aa72/32.png) [@bayonet1976](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bayonet1976)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2003, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-health-care-a-fundemental-right/194805/62 "2003-08-14T13:04:31Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Johnny L.A. \* > **Cuba, on the other hand, is a poor country. And yet from what I’ve heard, its health care system is excellent.** Not commenting on the thread topic itself, just saying that you’ve heard wrong. Medical care in Cuba is rudimentary at best, due in large part to the poor training of doctors. What Cuba does have is a large number of doctors, many of which no longer practice medicine and work in the tourist industry instead. ---
**Author:** ![Planet\_of\_the\_Shapes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b77776/32.png) [@Planet\_of\_the\_Shapes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Planet_of_the_Shapes)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2003, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-health-care-a-fundemental-right/194805/63 "2003-08-14T13:08:35Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by jsgoddess \* > \*\*So, is it your position that property rights are never more important than human life? > > Julie \*\* Pretty much. Would you rather be dead, or alive but own nothing? Additionally the extra taxation needed to finance life saving healthcare for those that can’t afford it would be a minor violation of property rights. This is an ideological argument though. As **London Calling** points out there are other arguments that socialised healthcare is cheaper too. If i took a totally selfish view though i (and the other europeans here) should be arguing that the US should keep to its current system of private healthcare. In the US drug market you generally have lots of buyers, and only one monopoly seller for any particular drug. This means the monopoly supplier can command a high price. In the UK, you have one monopoly seller, and one monopsony buyer, which means the buyer can get a lower price. If the US moved to a socialised system, it may be able to pay lower prices, which means the drug prices for the UK for example would have to rise. It may well be that the US is effectively subsidising other countries healthcare systems. ---
**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2003, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-health-care-a-fundemental-right/194805/64 "2003-08-14T13:45:10Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by yojimbo \* > \*\ ***Eva Luna** holy shit. 100,00k for a broken leg. Jaysus that’s expensive (somebody has to pay for it and it will trickle down to everyone ) > > \*\* Exactly. Although to be fair, it wasn’t an ordinary broken leg; I did quite a number on it. My foot was pointing in the opposite direction; it looked like I had a second ankle a couple inches above the first one. So far it’s taken 4 surgeries, a plate and screws, an external fixator (basically, my leg looked like a shish kabob for 6 months), about 3 weeks total in the hospital, and innumerable rehab visits. I’m more or less OK now, but down the line I may need an ankle replacement. I can’t imagine how expensive _that_ will be. ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2003, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-health-care-a-fundemental-right/194805/65 "2003-08-14T13:45:27Z")
**bayonet** , not to continue the hijack but fewer patients per doctor surely cannot _in itself_ explain a similar life expectancy to the US and an infant mortality rate that is \*better \* than some US cities, both way way in advance of other third world countries? ---
**Author:** ![yojimbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yojimbo/32/232_2.png) [@yojimbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yojimbo)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2003, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-health-care-a-fundemental-right/194805/66 "2003-08-14T13:47:42Z")
Lots of spending stats from around the world at the [OECD](http://www.oecd.org/document/16/0,2340,en_2825_495642_2085200_1_1_1_1,00.html) stats page. The %age of GDP for the following countries are ```auto Canada 9.7 Czech Republic 7.3 Denmark 8.6 Finland 7 France 9.5 Germany 10.7 Greece 9.4 Hungary 6.8 Ireland 6.5 Italy 8.4 Mexico 6.6 Netherlands 8.9 New Zealand 8.2 Norway 8.3 Portugal 9.2 Slovak Republic 5.7 Spain 7.5 Sweden 8.7 Switzerland 10.9 United Kingdom 7.6 United States 13.9 ``` On preview **Eva Luna** :eek ---
**Author:** ![yojimbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yojimbo/32/232_2.png) [@yojimbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yojimbo)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2003, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-health-care-a-fundemental-right/194805/67 "2003-08-14T13:49:49Z")
I learn how to use that code fecker at some stage. Oh and go :eek: ---
**Author:** ![bayonet1976](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/77aa72/32.png) [@bayonet1976](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bayonet1976)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2003, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-health-care-a-fundemental-right/194805/68 "2003-08-14T14:00:48Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by SentientMeat \* > \*\ ***bayonet** , not to continue the hijack but fewer patients per doctor surely cannot _in itself_ explain a similar life expectancy to the US and an infant mortality rate that is \*better \* than some US cities, both way way in advance of other third world countries? \*\* **SentientMeat** if you look at some historical data regarding life expectancy and infant mortality in Cuba you’ll see that Cuba has done better than similar countries in the pre-Castro era, and continues to do so today. [This link](http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/pubs/pubd/hus/tables/2002/02hus026.pdf), it’s a pdf file, lists historical infant mortality rates for selected countries from 1960 to 1998. Cuba’s rate in 1960 was 37.3/1000, compared to 26/1000 for the US at the same time. Hardly 3rd world standards. I can’t find a link with historical data for life expectancy right now, but you get the drift. ---
**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2003, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-health-care-a-fundemental-right/194805/69 "2003-08-14T14:05:42Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by SentientMeat \* > \*\*It is worth noting that a greater amount of money spent on a given system does not necessarily equate to better healtcare. For instance, Cuba acheives a similar life expectancy and rate of infant mortality to some US cities for a mere [£7 per head per annum](http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,376090,00.html). > > The US and Cuba obviously represent the two extremes here: it is important not to compare apples and oranges. \*\* In a similar vein, it’s important not to compare apples and oranges in terms of costs. Do you know how much Cuban doctors make, converted into dollars? I don’t have any stats ( **bayonet1976** might), but I’d bet it’s well under $100 a month. The whole economic scale in Cuba is different; their economy is completely out of whack with the rest of the world in terms of costs and prices. When I was in the Soviet Union in 1989, the average salary for doctors was something like 76 rubles a month. If you converted that to dollars at the then-current official exchange rate, it came out to about $12/month. Sure, if you’re paying doctors literally pennies a day, health care sure looks a lot cheaper. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2003, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-health-care-a-fundemental-right/194805/70 "2003-08-14T14:06:21Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Planet of the Shapes \* > **Pretty much. Would you rather be dead, or alive but own nothing?** That really isn’t the question. The question is, would you rather own nothing than for someone _else_ to be dead. Most people, in my experience, are willing to pay something for someone else not to die, but are not willing to pay _everything_ for someone else not to die. In other words, it’s a difference of degree rather than kind. If your government were to confiscate 100% of your property in order to give health care to 10 people, would that be okay? I think most people would balk at a cost that’s that high, and that means they are saying that sometimes property rights are more important that life. Julie ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2003, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-health-care-a-fundemental-right/194805/71 "2003-08-14T14:12:35Z")
Of course, **bayonet** and **Eva** , my point _was_ that all kinds of variables must be accounted for. However, the bottom line is that here is a third world country with health statistics that _somehow_ blow away every other third world country in the world. (Incidentally **bayonet** , from the linked article above > [@](#): > > When Fidel Castro came to power, Cuba’s mortality rates matched many other places in the developing world, with a life expectancy of 48 for men and 54 for women. Now it rivals anywhere in Europe or the US. Male life expectancy is 74 - the same as in the UK. Women can expect to live to 76 years old (79 in the UK) and infant mortality is 7.1 per 100,000 births - not much higher than ours. ---
**Author:** ![bayonet1976](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/77aa72/32.png) [@bayonet1976](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bayonet1976)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2003, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-health-care-a-fundemental-right/194805/72 "2003-08-14T14:18:05Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Eva Luna \* > **Do you know how much Cuban doctors make, converted into dollars? I don’t have any stats (bayonet1976 might), but I’d bet it’s well under $100 a month. The whole economic scale in Cuba is different; their economy is completely out of whack with the rest of the world in terms of costs and prices.** Salaries in Cuba for government positions, such as doctors, range from $US 7-20 per month. The one exception is police salaries which can be twice the maximum for those working in the capital or tourist venues. ---
**Author:** ![bayonet1976](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/77aa72/32.png) [@bayonet1976](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bayonet1976)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2003, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-health-care-a-fundemental-right/194805/73 "2003-08-14T14:26:41Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by SentientMeat \* > \*\*Of course, **bayonet** and **Eva** , my point _was_ that all kinds of variables must be accounted for. However, the bottom line is that here is a third world country with health statistics that _somehow_ blow away every other third world country in the world. > > (Incidentally **bayonet** , from the linked article above > > When Fidel Castro came to power, Cuba’s mortality rates matched many other places in the developing world, with a life expectancy of 48 for men and 54 for women. Now it rivals anywhere in Europe or the US. Male life expectancy is 74 - the same as in the UK. Women can expect to live to 76 years old (79 in the UK) and infant mortality is 7.1 per 100,000 births - not much higher than ours.\*\* Those numbers don’t match other documents out there. From [this link](http://www.bmpc.org/Cuba%20Assessment.pdf) , another pdf file, the average life expectancy in 1960 was 63.8. I’d urge to look at that number in a historical context and you’ll likely to find out that life expectancy in Cuba in 1960 was about the same as in many countries in Europe, and not that far off from the US. The point is that Cuba’s stats did not match other 3rd world countries back in 1960 and they don’t today, which sort brings into question whether Cuban should’ve been classified as a 3rd world country in 1960. ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2003, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-health-care-a-fundemental-right/194805/74 "2003-08-14T14:38:27Z")
> [@](#): > > brings into question whether Cuban should’ve been classified as a 3rd world country in 1960. “Third World” is as much a political classification as an economic one. I shall end the hijack here, noting that even the document you linked to is essentially a glowing recommendation of Cuba’s human indicators. ---
**Author:** ![Debaser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3da27b/32.png) [@Debaser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Debaser)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2003, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-health-care-a-fundemental-right/194805/75 "2003-08-14T16:28:49Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by yojimbo \* > **Eva Luna** holy shit. 100,00k for a broken leg. Jaysus that’s expensive (somebody has to pay for it and it will trickle down to everyone ) > > If the same happened here it would cost me ~$20 for the Emergency room and that’s it. It would cost you $20 and how much of a percentage of your income in taxes every week to support such a system? Health care is never free, people. Doctors, nurses, drug companies and hospital janitors all need to get paid. The only question is what is the most effecient way of doing it. If a broken leg costs $100,000 than it costs $100,000. Whether you pay $20 or the whole $100K yourself, the price is the same. If the government pays $99,980 of the 100,000 where do you think that money comes from? It bugs me that people seem to think that once the government pays for something it is _free_. The government doesn’t just print money whenever it needs some. That money comes from our taxes. ---
**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2003, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-health-care-a-fundemental-right/194805/76 "2003-08-14T16:43:53Z")
Yeah, but the health care system might not eat up such a huge percentage of U.S. GDP if it were more efficient. IIRC something like 25% of health-care dollars are spent on administration, plus U.S. consumers pay some of the highest prices in the world for drugs and medical services. If our system were more streamlined, it wouldn’t be so damn expensive, and we’d spend less in absolute dollars. Should it really cost $450 for a ten-minute ambulance ride, $1400 for the doctor to spend probably an hour looking at my X-rays and setting my leg, and another $2500 for ER care and one night in the hospital? I sure don’t think so. Nothing that was done to me in the first 2 days was anything sophisticated that couldn’t have been done just as well 50 years ago, but it sure didn’t cost the inflation-adjusted equivalent of $4500 50 years ago. Nor would it cost $4500 almost anywhere else in the world. I have no grand plan for health-care reform, myself, but let’s not pretend that the system we have is optimal. ---
**Author:** ![Planet\_of\_the\_Shapes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b77776/32.png) [@Planet\_of\_the\_Shapes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Planet_of_the_Shapes)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2003, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-health-care-a-fundemental-right/194805/77 "2003-08-14T17:41:52Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by jsgoddess \* > \*\*In other words, it’s a difference of degree rather than kind. If your government were to confiscate 100% of your property in order to give health care to 10 people, would that be okay? I think most people would balk at a cost that’s that high, and that means they are saying that sometimes property rights are more important that life. > > Julie \*\* OK i agree - it would not be fair to take all of someones income to pay for someone else’s healthcare so i guess there are extreme cases where property rights are more important than human life. I actually misunderstood you there - i thought you were advocating the other extreme - property rights are never more important than human life. ---
**Author:** ![Grim\_Beaker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/46a35a/32.png) [@Grim\_Beaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grim_Beaker)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2003, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-health-care-a-fundemental-right/194805/78 "2003-08-14T23:33:46Z")
> [@](#): > > Yeah, but the health care system might not eat up such a huge percentage of U.S. GDP if it were more efficient. IIRC something like 25% of health-care dollars are spent on administration, plus U.S. consumers pay some of the highest prices in the world for drugs and medical services. If our system were more streamlined, it wouldn’t be so damn expensive, and we’d spend less in absolute dollars. I’m sure that we would spend less absolute dollars if the process were more streamlined. I simply question how efficient a government bureaucracy can possibly be. [This](http://www.gmmusa.com/news/itij_issue20_p.21.pdf) article briefly discusses some of the common explanations for rising health care; Namely: 1. Non standardized administration procedures (the 25% you referred to) 2. High levels of utilization (Doctors will perform ‘defensive’ medicine in order to avoid accusations of negligence and medical malpractice suits) 3. High costs of medical malpractice insurance 4. The best and most recent medical innovations (availability of the new technology/research prompts doctors to use it in order to recoup investment costs) 5. Service Supply Dynamics. There is an overabundance of care available which increases the competition among providers. This has the bonus of providing nearly immediate care (no waiting lists) but is inefficient cost wise (more costs must be recouped from fewer patients). 6. Free Pricing and Profits. Doctors charge what the market will bear. If people are willing to pay $150 for minor medical services than that is what Doctors will charge. 7. Cost Shifting. The government specifies the maximum it is willing to pay doctors for services rendered to people on federal health programs. Sometimes these maximums are less than the doctors actual costs. Doctors will sometimes shift these extra operating costs onto other patients in the form of greater charges for those services. In addition medical facilities are required to provide emergency care to people who are unable to pay. These services are also factors in the rise of charges overall. An important thing to note among all of these reasons is that none of them would be affected by providing universal health care from the government. The medical industry would be no more streamlined or efficient if the government were to foot the bill. The $10,000 that John Doe paid for out of his pocket for his surgery is now $10,000 paid for by the government. The cost for the services is unchanged (perhaps it has even increased due to the cost of running the new bureacracy). In order to reduce costs the underlying causes must be addressed and, I believe, the difficult in addressing those costs is why there has been relatively little focus on them. Grim ---
**Author:** ![London\_Calling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@London\_Calling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/London_Calling)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2003, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-health-care-a-fundemental-right/194805/79 "2003-08-14T23:48:27Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by sghoul \* > London\_Calling, > > I don’t know that t is that people like paying more. In my case I don’t pay anything. Why? I haven’t needed medical care since I was born (aside from vaccinations). The problem that I and others has is that I, as a healthy person, should not be forced to help pay for less healthy people. And before anyone brings it up as an example, I don’t like the public school system either. Cos you aren’t always going to be healthy. You’re going to get ill, get hurt, break things, grow old and die, probably quite slowly and needing care while you do it. So, it’s not about _you_ today, it’s about _everyone’s_ needs thought their life. And you, at this point in the cycle, just happen to be one those who should be able to relax about what happens in 40 years time, just life my Grandparents did when they were young. Clearer ? > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by sghoul \* > One of the big things I wonder when things like this come up…if Universal health care is so great, and works so well, why don’t more people leave this country and move to the countries that have them? I think I will try and do a search to find the numbers of Americans leaving here for Europe, and the numbers of Europeans leaving there for America. You’re going to have to explain this news to me. Americans can live and work here if they wish ? Sure, Europeans can cos it’s the EU but Amercans can’t. And who moves continents for health care ? ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2003, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-health-care-a-fundemental-right/194805/80 "2003-08-14T23:51:52Z")
This probably should be in another thread, but if anyone can tell me, I’d appreciate it. How do malpractice suits work in a universal health care system? Julie [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-health-care-a-fundemental-right/194805.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-health-care-a-fundemental-right/194805.md?page=5)