In President Franklin Roosevelt’s final address to Congress, he articulated the need for a second bill of rights. One of these rights was the right to adequate medical care, but what exactly is a right to adequate medical care?
Many advocates for a constitutional right to medical care or healthcare believe in a Medicare-for-All option provided by the federal government. Supporters, like presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, believe this is one of the only economically viable options to achieve the goal of this proposed constitutional right. It requires raising taxes in the hopes of providing for as many Americans as possible.
Other supporters just believe healthcare should be a right guaranteed to citizens for free. These supporters include students in the medical field who have the ambition to provide such care to the impoverished.
“Everyone deserves to have healthcare whether they have the money or not,” said biology junior Sara Abouelniaj. “Once I get to be a successful doctor, I’m planning to give people who cannot afford healthcare [the] healthcare that they need for free.”
The concept of the right to adequate medical care seems well intentioned, and it has already been recognized since 1948 to be a universal human right by the United Nations. So why has the United States of America been one of the only major industrialized nations in the world to define medical care as a privilege and not a constitutional right?
The simple answer is that it creates a conflict of economic interests.
Many free market advocates have vigorously denied that it is the state’s responsibility to provide medical care. Some view it as a right that will eventually lead to a monopolistic form of healthcare. Others argue, like Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, that this right will force healthcare providers to provide services that they would otherwise not want to provide with from their own free will. Some of these believers include economics students.
“I don’t believe it is constitutional to force one individual’s work to be given to someone else at a price they don’t get to set,” said economics junior Stephen Nunez. “I believe in private, mutually beneficial contracts; no monopolistic force [in healthcare].”
While advocates for the right to adequate medical care such as myself believe it is a right long overdue, it is important to have a real discussion on this issue. It is good to have opposing views on this topic because they can provide the limitations of our goal of everyone being provided with efficient medical care.
It is not as though advocates for private health insurance are against people having adequate medical care. In fact, I believe it is quite the opposite.
They would rather have people be able to choose their options from people who, in their view, have chosen to provide healthcare on their own standards; not the government’s.
Many advocates for private insurance, who are not otherwise affiliated with private insurance companies, are skeptical of the government’s efficiency when it comes to providing such a responsibility to its citizens.
Those who oppose the right to healthcare have a very interesting view of its definition. As I would define it, it would be similar in concept to the right to counsel (which is already provided by the United States Constitution). If you are unable to afford private health insurance or private medical care, then the state will provide for you.
Also, in response to those who question whether it is the government’s responsibility to provide this to their citizens, look no further than the words of our nation’s four-time elected president, Franklin Roosevelt:
“Better the occasional faults of a Government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a Government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.”
Opinion columnist Samuel Pichowsky is a political science sophomore and may be reached at [email protected]
I don’t think many people realize how very efficient the federal MediCare insurance program really is. Private health insurance companies add an immense amount of cost to the healthcare costs, and I think they are the problem.
Do you think If the health insurance market was truly a “free market” then those costs would be reduced?
Medicare is projected to go broke in 2030, probably sooner, according to the non-partisan SS/Medicare Board of Trustees. Also, 10% of Medicare costs are attributed to fraud, roughly $60 BILLION in 2014…. What do you think would happen to a private health insurance companies stock if they were losing money every year and it was predicted they would be bankrupt in <14 years like Medicare?
Yet Medicare is constantly being touted by liberals/Dems/Socialists as a success??
Then we're constantly being told how great "single payer" systems like in Canada are. Did you know that 2/3 of Canadians pay for supplemental health insurance? Nobody mentions that do to they…. Ask any Veteran how that "Govt Healthcare" (VA) is working out for them, and if they had the choice, would they get their treatment from outside the VA system (private sector)? Now multiply those results for the entire population.
As much as this probably pains Bernie supporters, most of the current treatments for our health problems were invented due to the profit driven market. If you take that (incentive) away who will continue researching cures? The Govt.? You don't have to look very deep to find most Govt. programs/agencies are far less efficient than the free-market and are riddled with fraud/waste/cronyism.
Sammy, Sammy, Sammy? … how much tax will you be willing to pay to see that we all get healthcare? Of course you see yourself as an Elite on campus, but you are nothing more than a prole, a nothing to the Socialist political elites.
Your last piece was had only a few drops of SocDem saliva. This piece is dripping with SocDem saliva. And of course, as a sophomore poli sci major, and have totally bought into Socialism as being a straight line of goodness. When in actuality, there is a circle of ideologies. Some call in a Political — Spectrum, Compass or Circle.
What you don’t see is the consequences of Socialism and Communism. Have you heard of — The Great Leap Forward? Mao Zedong’s great Communist program to take the Chicoms to the next level. What happened. 45 million people died of starvation, just on the whims of a Total Dictator.
The Dictator Zedong dictated that the country make steel. The factories we not keeping up, so everybody started making steel in makeshift foundries. Anything metal was just about melted down, resulting in crappy steel that wasn’t worth anything. Cooking suffered because millions upon millions of pots and pans were melted down for an ill fated program.
Zedong then said Swallows were a national enemy and had to be killed. So the country went around killing billions of swallows. Then crops failed because of the dead swallows couldn’t eat live bugs that ate the crops.
Zedong had some much power than no one dared criticize him. So 45 million people died due to the guys incompetence.
I don’t think you see the bad side of what you are writing about. First off, where in the Constitution does it mandate health care for any of us? The market has always dictated the demands of healthcare whether the Docs received chickens or money in return for services.
Post World War II companies started health insurance as a perk to get the best applicants for positions. But even without that people could still receive medical care. I inherited a Bible from a great-Aunt that passed away. Inside was a receipt for a 2 day stay at one of the hospitals in Austin, Seton or Breckenridge or one of those. The amount charge was $31.00.
It all changed in 1966 when LBJ promised that Medicare would cost no more than $9 billion a year forever. Boy was than Lib wrong. Medicaid followed in the 1980’s, and now we have ObamaCare. Our first FORCED program upon the American people, and it is dying under its 600lb weight. It can’t support itself.
Obamacare’s true purpose is to force single-payer upon us, so what happens if we get that. Well if you get that Sammy boy, well, I won’t get it, because I’ll be in Belize by then; you’ll have to deal with it.
If we get single payer, then who is to stop the government from saying that it is more economical not to treat grandmother for her illness and just give her a pain pill. (Google – Obama pain pill comment” and you’ll see.)
Sammy, you need to see both sides of what you believe in. The Soviet Union is not around to show you how a people can be manipulated into towing to Communist party line.
The true answer to a successful healthcare system in the US is competition. Private health companies bought into ObamaCare medgasming over everyone being FORCED to have a policy. The didn’t see Americans don’t like being FORCED to do something.
If private companies have the power to sell across state lines, then healthcare cost will drop, they have too, if they want to stay in business. Healthcare is a product just as much as an iPhone or Samsung, and you see the competition between them.
Think on it Sammy. No one is forcing you to carry a gun, or forcing you to get an education. I don’t want to FORCE you to do anything. But Obama does. He’s already FORCED you to get an ObamaCare policy.
Good article Sammy.
There’s quite a difference between the right to “health care” and the right to “health care insurance.”
Which one, exactly, are you “arguing” for?