Pages 365-367 Is Health Care a Right?

“Is Health Care a Right?”

This article was published in October 2008 on THCB (The Health Care Blog).The author, Maggie Mahar, has experience writing about health care among other topics. Mahar attempts to define what people think “right” to health care means, the benefits of universal health care, and the effects health care has on Doctors.

Another blogger named Jim II defines rights as limitations on government power not handouts to the poor. It is not a person’s right to receive healthcare. Human rights were defined in the declaration to keep the government from repeating history again and again of infringing on citizens rights. Mahar believes that as an industrial society it is our responsibility to provide equal health care.

Universal health care is beneficial to everyone. Although she does not address the issue of cost all of her supporting reasons are valid. Unhealthy people cannot contribute to society and people who wait longer are worse off and more costly. She also adds in that even people who cannot contribute to the economy can contribute to society.

The argument that Doctors heavily regulated will have deteriorating work ethics in the medical field. Many doctors in the ER are federally regulated to at least stabilize a patient even if they can’t pay. Mahar thinks that Doctors signed up to help patients and should not feel enslaved to do what they so heavily trained for.

After reading this I wanted to know more about the history of health care and the current state of health care. The struggle between healthcare cost and affordability is saddening. There are many medical advances that everyone could benefit from that could never afford them. I strongly agree with Mahar when she references Shadowfax saying “members of a civilized society recognizing that all humans are vulnerable to disease – this is something we have in common – and so willingly pooling their resources to protect each of us against the hazards of fate.” Universal health care is nothing new, we as a society just need to not be afraid of the change.

Here is a link for the history of healthcare from PBS. It is old but all I really wanted was a quick look at how things got started. http://www.pbs.org/healthcarecrisis/history.htm

And finally a link about the 2014 reform.

http://www.dpc.senate.gov/healthreformbill/healthbill52.pdf