So in the long debates we’ve been having about health care in the USA, I’ve come to a new way of thinking about some things. Generally a lot of people consider things like single-payer health care to be socialism. I’m starting to think it shouldn’t be framed that way. It should be framed as a natural human right instead. If you look at Maslov’s Hierarchy of Needs, health care is at or near the bottom.
Why did our founding fathers decide that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness were the only natural human rights that should be protected? I think because Maslov hadn’t figured things out yet and published his work. After all, the pursuit of happiness is in the top levels of the Hierarchy, so that’s rather high-minded thinking. This is totally Big Picture, and theory more than practicable solution but I am starting to think that government-protected (or provided) natural human rights should be things in the bottom two levels of Maslov’s Hierarchy.
I can hear my fellow Americans screaming already. I’d love to hear from posters from other countries also. Debate on!
It is no different to me than the provision of education, roads, fire, police, judiciary or the armed forces. Whether they are “rights” or not doesn’t concern me but certainly I think they are better provided by a collective distribution of tax money.
Unlike such things like food or personal transport and housing, Healthcare seems like the perfect example of where a person’s need to make use of the service cannot reasonable be anticipated long term and an individual’s demand of it will vary from person to person by multiple orders of magnitude with the risk of pain, misery or death if that demand isn’t met. And none of that disproportionate demand may be the choice of that individual.
My guess for the oversight is the healthcare available at the time of the founding fathers was cheaper. You needed a doctor, you called a doctor, and paid for the doc’s time out of pocket. There was no healthcare option costing several years worth of pay. You died instead.
The election is this year. There’s not enough time to recast public opinion on something like this.
I also think calling public health care a “right” is a bad idea. There are people who will get triggered by that word almost as much as “socialism”.
I think the better idea would be to pitch health care as another item in the list of services - like schools, fire fighting, mail delivery, roads, and the police - that the government is better suited to providing than private sources are. We should compare it to these things that the public is already familiar with and in favor of.
Yes, I think pitching it as an “essential service” is more appropriate than a “human right”. The founding fathers would never have thought of healthcare as a right because healthcare at the time was either non-existent or downright appalling. I read diaries in my family only going back 4 generations and there was a story of one of the children dying at home and they seemed very resigned to the fact that nothing could be done about it. I’m pretty sure spending enormous resources on keeping a person alive was probably looked much the same as spending enormous resources keeping a pet alive today. Some people do it, a lot of people don’t.
“Single-payer” (i.e. - government run) healthcare is Socialism though. You can’t redefine your way around it. Socialism is state control over the means of production. If the state controls healthcare, then it is socialism.
Healthcare is not, and cannot be a human right. To view healthcare as a human right essentially turns healthcare workers into slaves.
So if I go to a doctor and he refuses to treat me without pay has he denied my fundamental human rights? Do my fundamental human rights mean that everyone who chooses to go into medicine is my servant? Fundamental rights like life, liberty, and property do not impose on other people.
It doesn’t matter if you call it a fundamental human right or a purple monkey dishwasher, government paid for health care means everyone’s taxes will double while quality suffers. That is a great deal for those who pay very little taxes but awful for everyone else.
I know this is a hairball topic, so I’m not surprised to see some of the reactions so far. I’d like to respond to this point. Weren’t life and liberty at the time of the founding fathers also often downright appalling or non-existent?
Actually I think their ideals were too high-level or overgeneralized. One could argue that health care fits into the “life” part of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. In their time, as you state, the health care industry was appallingly poor so there wasn’t much they could do about it other than perhaps roll it up into an over-arching ideal. Then years go by and we silly descendents take them too literally at their word. I don’t know, I’m just pondering.
Humans decide what rights humans have, and how to implement them (we might pretend they were “endowed by our Creator” or whatever, but this is still a decision made by humans, as is how to implement these rights). Deciding that we have the right to health care doesn’t turn anyone into slaves – that’s ridiculous hyperbole, and doesn’t apply in the various countries that do guarantee their citizens health care.
I don’t get this. You’re saying that health care could not be a human right that is supported by paid health care workers? Would would it mandate that they give their work away for free?
I think a lot of the distinction is between positive rights, and negative rights.
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are negative rights. So are the other enumerated rights - the right to free speech, freedom of religion, etc. Negative rights are rights that no one else can stop you from exercising. Positive rights are rights to have other people do things for you.
I have the right to speak my mind, but nobody else has to buy me a platform. I have the right to pursue happiness, but no one else has to give me the money to pursue it. Etc.
Healthcare as a negative right means that if I want to buy healthcare, no one can stop me. Nor, if I don’t want to buy some kinds of healthcare, no one can force me to buy it.
Healthcare as a positive right means if I want healthcare, someone else is obligated to buy it for me.
The right to “home care”, if home care means having a fire in one’s home fought, is a de facto right for the vast majority of (if not all) Americans. Firefighters aren’t slaves. Healthcare could be treated the same. And for similar reasons - leaving sick and injured people as sick and injured risks doing a lot of harm to others on their community, just like letting a burning house continue to burn risks harm to that community.
We all pay for firefighting whether we like it or not. Healthcare could be treated the same way.
The right to an adequate standard of living is a fundamental human right. It is part of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that was accepted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 10, 1948.[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.
— Article 25.1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
I’d love to hear from posters from other countries also. Debate on!