# UHC Should Be Recognized As A Fundamental Birthright. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 20, 2010, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uhc-should-be-recognized-as-a-fundamental-birthright/533135 "2010-03-20T15:03:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![adhay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecd19e/32.png) [@adhay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adhay)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2010, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uhc-should-be-recognized-as-a-fundamental-birthright/533135/21 "2010-03-20T21:15:01Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > You think the right to own property defines feudalism? Of course not. The right of a wealthy few to own the property of the rest defines feudalism. > [@](#): > > Before you go any further with this, I suggest spending a little time with an encyclopedia and educating yourself as to what these terms mean. > > Jefferson’s first draft could be read like this: > > - Everyone has a right to life, meaning that you should be secure in your person from the government sacrificing your life for its own ends. > > - everyone has the right to liberty - freedom to chose their own actions, so long as they don’t violate the fundamental rights of others. > > - Everyone has the right to pursue property, meaning that you are free to spend the fruits of your own labor on things for yourself, and that no one has a right to take them away from you in pursuit of their own goals - including the government. Totally agree, just substitute the word corporation for govt and you’ve got it. > [@](#): > > The text was changed because it was too materialistic, not because it was feudalistic. Freedom does not necessarily devolve down to the pursuit of property - it can be the freedom to take a vow of poverty, for example. Or freedom to starve yourself to death in pursuit of a philosophical or political goal. **So the text was changed to be the ‘pursuit of happiness’, which is just another way of saying that you do not need to justify your motives to anyone. You are free to act in ways that you wish, regardless of what other people think, so long as you do not infringe on the rights of others to do the same.** [emphasis mine] Dick Cheney’s secret energy panel and lost emails? I’m not thru with you **Sam** , but I need a break. Stay tuned. ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2010, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uhc-should-be-recognized-as-a-fundamental-birthright/533135/22 "2010-03-20T21:43:07Z")
Sweden recently made broadband internet access a right, if I heard that correctly. It sounds weird and foreign to us, and might not make total sense if you break it down, but it seems to work for them. I think the way a lot of other countries look at their relationship with government is more like “we elect you chumps, we pay your salary, so DO SOMETHING.” And taxes aren’t seen as ZOMGEEEEV1L!!! like they are here, because they’re saying what they want for their money, and getting it. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2010, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uhc-should-be-recognized-as-a-fundamental-birthright/533135/23 "2010-03-20T21:43:43Z")
> [@adhay](#): > > Of course not. The right of a wealthy few to own the property of the rest defines feudalism. No it doesn’t. Feudalism is defined as an oath bound contractual grant of land in exchange for military service. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2010, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uhc-should-be-recognized-as-a-fundamental-birthright/533135/24 "2010-03-20T21:48:32Z")
> [@adhay](#): > > Quite so, and the point of the OP. I present as given that what is “right” is decided by who has the bucks. The corporate feudalism into which this country has evolved has devolved into the idea of the people’s choice into preferences in toothpaste. You have not made a case that we exist in a form of corporate feudalism. > [@](#): > > But the OP really poses the question of what OUR society would look like had we taken to heart what many slave owners in the early “republic” recognized, that a well-fed, healthy slave with adequate time off for recreation was good business. Now I’m really confused. That seems to be pretty much the opposite of what you posited in the OP: > [@OP](#): > > But let’s suppose we really were a nation, “of, by and for the people”, and really had a say in what our govt does in our name and how it treats its citizens and visitors. ---
**Author:** ![adhay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecd19e/32.png) [@adhay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adhay)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2010, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uhc-should-be-recognized-as-a-fundamental-birthright/533135/25 "2010-03-20T22:00:31Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > No it doesn’t. Feudalism is defined as an oath bound contractual grant of land in exchange for military service. Conscription is no longer PC. Overpriced prescriptions do the job these days. Get off my lawn as long as I can afford it. ---
**Author:** ![adhay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecd19e/32.png) [@adhay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adhay)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2010, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uhc-should-be-recognized-as-a-fundamental-birthright/533135/26 "2010-03-20T22:18:51Z")
> [@Cisco](#): > > Sweden recently made broadband internet access a right, if I heard that correctly. It sounds weird and foreign to us, and might not make total sense if you break it down, but it seems to work for them. > > I think the way a lot of other countries look at their relationship with government is more like “we elect you chumps, we pay your salary, so DO SOMETHING.” And taxes aren’t seen as ZOMGEEEEV1L!!! like they are here, because they’re saying what they want for their money, and getting it. Quite so! Europe, in general, has suffered a full cycle of capitalist expansion culminating in two world wars. We, OTH, just recently rid ourselves of slaves and indigenous Americans and still have much to learn. ---
**Author:** ![adhay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecd19e/32.png) [@adhay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adhay)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2010, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uhc-should-be-recognized-as-a-fundamental-birthright/533135/27 "2010-03-20T22:24:47Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > You have not made a case that we exist in a form of corporate feudalism. Actually, we exist in God. Corporate feudalism the Devil’s Idea. > [@](#): > > Now I’m really confused. That seems to be pretty much the opposite of what you posited in the OP: You are no more confused than I am. (theoretically) ---
**Author:** ![adhay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecd19e/32.png) [@adhay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adhay)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2010, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uhc-should-be-recognized-as-a-fundamental-birthright/533135/28 "2010-03-20T22:28:37Z")
Back at **Sam**. > [@](#): > > You can never have a ‘right’ which involves taking away the same right from someone else. A ‘right’ to health care means that someone else must be forced to provide it to you, which would then violate their rights. And since health services are scarce, every time you exercise your ‘right’ to free health care, you prevent someone else from exercising theirs. What? Deny corporations right to extort livelihood from those in need? Not in the good old USA. > [@](#): > > Let’s say you have a heart defect, and you need a transplant. So do 20 other people, but there are only 10 hearts available. Whose right gets trampled? What happens to your ‘right’ to UHC if there aren’t enough doctors and nurses? > > If you live in a town with one doctor, does he have the right to retire? If so, what happens to your right for UHC? > > Universal health care is at best a social aspiration. Again, we are in agreement. Corporations theoretically are condoned to focus capital on public need. Practice has proven far from theory. > [@](#): > > When a society gets wealthy enough, it may decide that it can afford to be magnanimous and start looking after the people who cannot afford their own health care. Society, unplundered by corporate greed, would have evolved into something much more polite. > [@](#): > > It does this out of _charity_, and out of an interest in maintaining social order and a functional civil society, just as it does with other social programs. I support limited welfare and a form of universal health insurance for these reasons. Yep! How you gonna do it without reigning in the neocons? > [@](#): > > It is critically important, however, to maintain an understanding of the fact that these programs are charitable and not a right, lest people come to believe that they have no need to attempt to pay for their own care or in other ways support themselves in life. If you understand charity as something grudgingly given to the the less fortunate, then God Bless You. > [@](#): > > You want people who get free health coverage to be grateful - not resentful because it’s not more than it is. The ‘entitlement’ mentality is tragically destructive, and leads to class warfare and a breakdown of civil society - the opposite of what we want to achieve with social programs. As long as we understand ‘entitlement’ to mean the legal corporate theft of OUR public thrust, let’s go have a drink and a smoke. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2010, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uhc-should-be-recognized-as-a-fundamental-birthright/533135/29 "2010-03-20T22:35:23Z")
> [@adhay](#): > > Actually, we exist in God. Corporate feudalism the Devil’s Idea.You are no more confused than I am. (theoretically) Buh-bye. ---
**Author:** ![emacknight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ec8ea/32.png) [@emacknight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emacknight)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2010, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uhc-should-be-recognized-as-a-fundamental-birthright/533135/30 "2010-03-20T22:47:21Z")
> [@adhay](#): > > Actually, we exist in God. Corporate feudalism the Devil’s Idea.You are no more confused than I am. (theoretically) wow, this took a bizarre turn towards crazy town. I’m out. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2010, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uhc-should-be-recognized-as-a-fundamental-birthright/533135/31 "2010-03-20T22:49:26Z")
**adhay** , you are clearly far too consumed with your one-track “corporations are the source of all evil” philosophy to be able to discuss issues like this rationally. Your last message was essentially a paranoid rant devoid of any useful content whatsoever. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2010, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uhc-should-be-recognized-as-a-fundamental-birthright/533135/32 "2010-03-20T22:49:44Z")
**adhay** , May I ask how old you are? During what period did you go to high school, college? (Assuming you’re not going now, of course.) ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2010, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uhc-should-be-recognized-as-a-fundamental-birthright/533135/33 "2010-03-20T23:14:47Z")
> [@Ruminator](#): > > This is absurd. The USA is a unique land of opportunity. > > Anyone, and I mean anyone, can file the forms with the state and city to start a business. You can create a corporation or a Limited Liability Company. When you file those papers, the state government officials do not ask you what family you come from or what title or nobility your father has. Now that you have your shiny new company, you are free to pay yourself whatever you think you’re worth. > > If you choose not to not deal with the hassle with owning a company, you are free to find employment with anybody who finds your skills valuable. You are not bound to the land or indentured the particular city you happen to be born in. You do not have to explain to your next employer if you are bound by an oath of allegiance to your previous lord. You can work as salaried, join a union, or freelance. > > Feudalism? Ridiculous. Do you actually believe that the entire rest of the world is\*\* still \*\*feudal? :rolleyes: Or that modern social-democratic Europe is feudal? Or modern capitalist England since, say, the Glorious Revolution? None of what you describe is the least bit unique to the USA nor does it have any conflict with a welfare state & popular gov’t. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2010, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uhc-should-be-recognized-as-a-fundamental-birthright/533135/34 "2010-03-20T23:22:45Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > In order to satisfy their obligations under the Second Amendment, the government does not have to do anything. You are the only person who is pretending it is supposed to require action on the government’s part to give you a gun. The government doesn’t have to help, it just has to get out of the way. The Second Amendment does not perceive government as monolithic nor does it recommend non-interference by state actors in the security of the populace. Local governments have every right to issue guns to their populaces entire & to conscript them into a militia. (Actually, they may not have that right now, but under a strict reading of the Second they would.) Even the feds can have an army & navy. So if we treat health care as parallel to gun rights, then states & localities can build public hospitals, or social insurance schemes, if they so choose. And so can the federal government. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![adhay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecd19e/32.png) [@adhay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adhay)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2010, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uhc-should-be-recognized-as-a-fundamental-birthright/533135/35 "2010-03-21T00:09:02Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > **adhay** , > > May I ask how old you are? During what period did you go to high school, college? (Assuming you’re not going now, of course.) In a sense, we’re all now in a school without recess. However, 69 yo. Almost straight A’s, K-12, class of '59 in an award winning public school system, K-8 in an award winning Episcopal church Sunday School followed by 4 years in its award winning Boys Choir. Then I dropped out after two years in an award winning men’s college. Worked from the time I was 12, paid cash for my first car (parents paid the insurance first time around) and was an Eagle Scout. Fuck.Me.Running. Thanks for asking … more on request. ---
**Author:** ![adhay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecd19e/32.png) [@adhay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adhay)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2010, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uhc-should-be-recognized-as-a-fundamental-birthright/533135/36 "2010-03-21T00:37:04Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > … In order to satisfy their obligations under the Second Amendment, the government does not have to do anything. You are the only person who is pretending it is supposed to require action on the government’s part to give you a gun. The government doesn’t have to help, it just has to get out of the way. Nope, sell me a gun and then get out of my way. > [@](#): > > On the other hand, there’s no such thing as universal health care that _doesn’t_ create this kind of obligation. If it didn’t, it wouldn’t be universal. **Adhay** is not arguing that the rest of society should not stand in the way of his attempts to get treatment for his illnesses, he’s suggesting that they should be _required_ to _give_ him their services even if he can’t do anything for them in return. A slight misunderstanding of my hypothesis, I opine. If you go back to the OP, I’m quite happy with the medical treatment I’ve received from the USG. Cancer diagnosed and excised for $20 including a $5 co pay for some delightful pain management, courtesy of Big Pharma. Stylin’ here. I recommend retirement. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2010, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uhc-should-be-recognized-as-a-fundamental-birthright/533135/37 "2010-03-21T00:47:01Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > The Second Amendment does not perceive government as monolithic nor does it recommend non-interference by state actors in the security of the populace. Local governments have every right to issue guns to their populaces entire & to conscript them into a militia. (Actually, they may not have that right now, but under a strict reading of the Second they would.) Even the feds can have an army & navy. > > So if we treat health care as parallel to gun rights, then states & localities can build public hospitals, or social insurance schemes, if they so choose. And so can the federal government. 😛 Of course. No one’s stopping the government from building a hospital and offering services. No one’s stopping the government from having a ‘free handgun night’. The question is whether the government has the right to force doctors and nurses to work in it, in order to satisfy someone else’s ‘right’ to health care, or whether someone’s lack of health care gives them the ‘right’ to have the government forcibly confiscate someone else’s wealth to pay for it. ---
**Author:** ![Cheshire\_Human](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Cheshire\_Human](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheshire_Human)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2010, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uhc-should-be-recognized-as-a-fundamental-birthright/533135/38 "2010-03-21T01:55:52Z")
Note to all the people responding to this post: > [@emacknight](#): > > Why is it this statement is ONLY made about health care? The second amendment to the constitution provides a right to keep and bear arms. By your logic, that means I can demand a free gun should I not be able to afford one. You are misunderstanding **emacknight** ’s point. He was NOT advocating that the government owes him a gun under specific circumstances. He was using that as an example of something acknowledged as a right, and showing that the logic of saying health care is a right that requires someone else to pay for it if I can’t is analogous to saying that the government owes me a gun if I can’t afford it. It is a reductio ad absurdem argument. ---
**Author:** ![adhay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecd19e/32.png) [@adhay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adhay)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2010, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uhc-should-be-recognized-as-a-fundamental-birthright/533135/39 "2010-03-21T02:12:34Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > **adhay** , you are clearly far too consumed with your one-track “corporations are the source of all evil” philosophy to be able to discuss issues like this rationally. Your last message was essentially a paranoid rant devoid of any useful content whatsoever. Well, yes. A bit over the top. I can only plead having been carried away by a metaphor C.S. Lewis used in his preface (1961) to a revised edition of the Screwtape Letters where he likened Hell to a place run from > [@](#): > > clean, carpeted, warm and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the offices of a thoroughly nasty business concern. ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2010, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uhc-should-be-recognized-as-a-fundamental-birthright/533135/40 "2010-03-21T03:30:10Z")
> [@Cheshire\_Human](#): > > You are misunderstanding **emacknight** ’s point. He was NOT advocating that the government owes him a gun under specific circumstances. He was using that as an example of something acknowledged as a right, and showing that the logic of saying health care is a right that requires someone else to pay for it if I can’t is analogous to saying that the government owes me a gun if I can’t afford it. It is a reductio ad absurdem argument. I think you’re misunderstanding what UHC means, because that’s where the comparison collapses. UHC by definition means that health care will have to be provided for some who can’t afford it. That’s not analogous to the second amendment. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uhc-should-be-recognized-as-a-fundamental-birthright/533135.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uhc-should-be-recognized-as-a-fundamental-birthright/533135.md?page=3)