Do Americans believe free or cheap healthcare is a human right?
There is one specific way that I find free healthcare as a human right to be a bizarre concept. If free healthcare is a human right, then shouldn’t free food be a human right? How about free water? And free clothing? How about housing? Shouldn’t everyone be given a free house? It seems that government should provide food, water, clothing and shelter before it provides healthcare. Yet mot people that promote government healthcare find the concept of free government food, water, clothing and shelter absurd.Why don’t we have government run farms? Stores could be run by government and people can go and get all the food and clothing they want free or cheap. All farmers, truckers and store clerks could be government employees. Shouldn’t you go to a government office to get a house? Why don’t we do that?There is a good reason why we don’t do that. It simply doesn’t work well. No bureaucracy with a bureaucratic set of rules can arrange all of the conditions necessary to provide food, water, clothing or shelter as efficiently as a web of competing private interests, each with an incentive to make the end consumer satisfied.The same is true with healthcare. I have spoken with people from around the world and they admit that there is nothing as remarkable as healthcare in the US. I speak most with people from Canada. Although they complain about the cost of healthcare in the US, they all admit that the choice, access and quality of care is superior to what they have at home. They go to doctors in the United States because unless they are bleeding to death, they will likely die of old age before they get an appointment in Canada. They also schedule all of their complex procedures in the United States. The British ex-pats and Americans who have lived in Britain tell me that health care facilities in England resemble that of a third world country. They tell quaint stories of open wards with fans and people carrying around pitchers of water in London hospitals. Again, very basic emergency care is well handled, but any type of routine care requires months of wait. Sophisticated care in both countries requires the approval of a bureaucratic board and you may die long before your case comes up on the agenda. I’ve heard that care in Italy is better, but still not up to what is expected in the United States.So if healthcare is a right and we should move to a single payer system, shouldn’t we move to a single payer system for food, clothing, water and housing first?
Why do Americans think healthcare should be a profit making enterprise rather than a human right?
Well, first of all, I don’t see what basis the asker has in assuming “Americans think” this. Virtually every thought that is possible to have has probably been thought by an American at some point. Pigeonholing 300 million people in one fell swoop is… rather implausible I’d say.But the more important point is this: the asker seems to assume a dichotomy between the two. This is a classic (almost comically) false dichotomy. If “healthcare” is a human right, then who is going to provide it if no one can make a profit doing so? Will the providers be forced at the point of a gun to provide it? And if so, is that really going to be more affordable than simply letting people earn a profit for providing a service? Sounds like North Korea to me. Sure, it might work… barely.Now I happen to believe “healthcare” is not a human right; because I don’t believe “human rights” exist. There is no right that may be construed apart from a moral and legal obligation upon others. So saying “healthcare is a human right” is tantamount to saying someone (who?) is morally obliged to provide it.
Should all Americans have the right (be entitled) to health care?
I have to write a research paper on this topic. It has to be a controversial topic, so please I need help. I need a lot of information, since the paper has to be at least 4 pages long. Thank you!
Should all Americans have the right (be entitled) to health care?
There's a difference between a right and an entitlement. In civilized countries we see a certain level of health care as a human right (not even a civil right!) Nobody bleeds to death on the steps of the ER. If you can get there, they have to treat you, at least to some degree, regardless of your ability to pay. Of course these costs are passed on to taxpayers and insured who can pay. This is why EVERY developed country except the US has some kind of universal health care. The US is unique among developed nations in that we see health care only as a profit-creator, so we manage the whole system for maximum profit, not maximum care. We pretend that if we simply deny health care to the poor they will just go home and die quietly and not cost us any money, but if we include them in a universal-coverage scheme they'll use much more than their share and make the rest of us poor.
Is healthcare a basic human right?
All the other advanced countries outside of the USA think so. And they all afford it quite well.
Why are Americans so against national health care being implemented in America? Do they not believe access to healthcare is a human right?
These answers make me sad…It’s basically 9 people, some with hundreds of upvotes, saying “Fuck everyone else, I can afford it.”I do realise Calvinism is strong in US, but come on…The entire argument about Healthcare not being a human right because it involves labour is ridiculous. Water involves labour, yet it is a human right. Some European countries already have access to the internet in human rights as well and providers have to have a basic, low cost option for those people.Even US citizens still have a right to a fair trial (except for when the government decides you don’t deserve it). This too requires someone’s labour. Yet, it is a basic human right, not slavery as John Cate calls it.Basic Rights are not some magical crap from God. All of them require someone’s labour. And which ones are and which aren’t is decided simply by majority. US basic rights didn’t apply to slaves. I guess it just slipped God’s mind that day…Now, don’t get me wrong. United States of America is completely and utterly unable to implement something like national healthcare, but that’s to deep of a social problem to cover in anything less than a 500-page book. They already pay ridiculous amount of taxes towards healthcare, of which they don’t get anything, to feed the monster they call healthcare. Then they spend another ridiculous amount of money for insurance that doesn’t apply until you spend a third ridiculous pile of money out of pocket first.The government can’t be trusted because big companies bribe… Lobby… them, and all everybody cares about is proffits. Bottom 50% of the country be damned.Unchecked capitalism in tandem with “Each gets what he deserves.” is just wonderful.