Is healthcare a right or a privilege II

[InTheLight]

So forget about interstate highways, bridges,

Used by all citzens.

inspection of aircraft and food,

Benefits to all citizens

the entire system of justice,

Benefits to all citizens

supporting scientific advances

,
Potential benefit to all citizens

law enforcement, air traffic control,

Benefits to all citizens

building standards for housing (let them fall apart),

Benefits to all citizens

support for public education (we can fall further behind),

Benefits to all citizens

Yours is an untenable position. Do you want to wake up tomorrow morning to see that all of these have gone away?

Of course not.

Some of the radical right are proposing that we return to private toll roads with toll booths every 10 miles. Sound like an advance into the future?

Now you are being silly.


You list a bunch of services that are paid for by taxes. These services, by and large, benefit all citizens. Providing health care to people that can't afford it by taxing people that earn money is a direct money transfer. Take money from someone and give it to an individual so they can buy something. I can't go out and buy law enforcement on an individual basis. I can't buy interstate highways for myself. Health care is something people buy individually.

 

[Matt Black]

Er...no: healthcare benefits all citizens. I don't want to hire someone who is off sick every few weeks because of a treatable condition when they can't afford the treatment. Think of the billions lost to the economy because of sick days.

 

[Matt Black]

Exactly. Which is why I see classifying healthcare as a right as merely a tactic for stifling debate on the issue.

If you don't classify it as a right then I'm not sure how you can claim to be pro-life, since the right to healthcare is an essential adjunct to the right to life. Or does this 'right to life' expire at birth?

 

[Rob_BW]

If you don't classify it as a right then I'm not sure how you can claim to be pro-life, since the right to healthcare is an essential adjunct to the right to life. Or does this 'right to life' expire at birth?

Who was the healtchcare provider for Cain or Abel's birth?

Seems like births preceded healthcare as we know it.

The right to life means we have a right to not have our lives extinguished. If grandpa dies at 110, has he been deprived of his right? No, unless he was murdered.

Food and shelter are clothing are more important needs than healthcare, but I don't have a right to any of them. God tells me that the ground is cursed, and I will eat of it by means of painful labor, by the sweat of my brow, until this body returns to dust. Gen 3:17-19.

Again, charity is a great good, but that doesn't mean that I have a right to anything.

 

[Revmitchell]

If you don't classify it as a right then I'm not sure how you can claim to be pro-life, since the right to healthcare is an essential adjunct to the right to life. Or does this 'right to life' expire at birth?

Talk about begging the question

 

[InTheLight]

Er...no: healthcare benefits all citizens. I don't want to hire someone who is off sick every few weeks because of a treatable condition when they can't afford the treatment. Think of the billions lost to the economy because of sick days.

Well, you're the employer. Provide health care insurance for your employees! Don't rely on taxpayers to foot the bill for your employees.

 

[Matt Black]

I pay tax for that - a lot of tax; why pay twice for the same things? You don't buy a dog and then bark yourself...

Talk about begging the question

Then kindly answer it!

 

[Matt Black]

The right to life means we have a right to not have our lives extinguished. .

So, if your life is extinguished because you don't have access to healthcare, your right to life is infringed. All else reeks of hypocrisy.

 

[InTheLight]

I pay tax for that - a lot of tax; why pay twice for the same things? You don't buy a dog and then bark yourself...


Then kindly answer it!

Whenever you say, "the right to health care" you are begging the question. You are assuming that health care is, indeed, a right. There is no reason to answer any question that contains that phrase because doing so will indicate belief in your assumption that health care is a right.

 

[Matt Black]

I don't see how that can be an 'assumption' if one claims to be 'pro-life', unless that is also an 'assumption' here? Is it?

 

[Rob_BW]

My position is consistent. I don't have a right to anyones goods or labor, which is what healtchcare consists of.

I have a right to live, assemble, reap the rewards of my own labor, and a few others. These rights are innate to me. They do not require goods or labor from someone else. I have these rights until someone physically deprives me of the, through theft, murder, slavery, & etc.

I don't have a right to anyone else's stuff. Not their medicine, access to their operating tables, not their billable hours of labor as a doctor. And not someone else's food, clothing, shelter, & etc.

Explain to me how I have a right to someone else's stuff?

 

[Rob_BW]

I don't see how that can be an 'assumption' if one claims to be 'pro-life', unless that is also an 'assumption' here? Is it?

The entire economic output of the world can be focused on keeping one person alive, and eventually, that one person will die anyway. In such a scenario, I don't see how that would make the world culpable in that person's death.

But that's the implication when you say someone can't be pro life without supporting state run healthcare.

 

[Matt Black]

Hard cases don't make good law or ethical principles - look at the Charlie Gard case we are debating elsewhere.

My position is consistent. I don't have a right to anyones goods or labor, which is what healtchcare consists of.

I have a right to live, assemble, reap the rewards of my own labor, and a few others. These rights are innate to me. They do not require goods or labor from someone else. I have these rights until someone physically deprives me of the, through theft, murder, slavery, & etc.

I don't have a right to anyone else's stuff. Not their medicine, access to their operating tables, not their billable hours of labor as a doctor. And not someone else's food, clothing, shelter, & etc.

Explain to me how I have a right to someone else's stuff?

Because 'your stuff' (the rewards of your labour which you want to reap) don't arise in a vacuum: the roads you drive on to the place of your labour, the legal system and law enforcement plus national defence that protects 'your stuff' from the depredations of others, the education and good health of your co-workers and/ or those who provide essential goods and services to you so that you can produce 'your stuff' - all are produced by others ss tge fruits of their labours and have to be paid for somehow. So you already enjoy the right to 'other people's stuff', whether you realise and appreciate that or not.

 

[Rob_BW]

I get it, you think that people have a right to other people's goods and labor. Qualifying that statement with talk about roads and schools doesn't change the core of the statement.

I received 48 months of education benefits from my government. Because it was an included benefit from a contractual agreement derived from law. Seemed like a good deal to me. But that does not create a right to education.

 

[Matt Black]

I just acknowledge that in a functioning society these reciprocal rights and obligations are being exercised all the time. You just perhaps don't realise it or accept it, in which case why do you pay taxes or drive on other people's roads at all? Think about it: every time you drive on the public highway you are exercising your 'right to other people's labour ' , 'other people's stuff'. If you're so against that principle, you really ought to stay home.

 

[Rob_BW]

Why? I choose to remain a citizen of this country, and enjoy the infrastructure my country chooses produce.

Did you not read my post about education benefits? I can pay taxes and use roads or other services without accepting that I have a right to anything.

 

[InTheLight]

I just acknowledge that in a functioning society these reciprocal rights and obligations are being exercised all the time. You just perhaps don't realise it or accept it, in which case why do you pay taxes or drive on other people's roads at all? Think about it: every time you drive on the public highway you are exercising your 'right to other people's labour ' , 'other people's stuff'. If you're so against that principle, you really ought to stay home.

We don't have a right to drive on other people's roads. (BTW, what are "other people's roads?" Their driveways?) Anyway, we have the privilege of driving if we can prove that we are competent at handling a motor vehicle.

 

[Rob_BW]

I see you used the phrase functioning society and civilised society.

Society and government is a veneer over natural order. I acknowledge that. And the people within a nation can agree to all sorts of deals. Vote in whatever they like.

But that does not create a natural right.

 

[Matt Black]

Why? I choose to remain a citizen of this country, and enjoy the infrastructure my country chooses produce.

Did you not read my post about education benefits? I can pay taxes and use roads or other services without accepting that I have a right to anything.

So you're perfectly happy to exercise that right without er acknowledging you have it.

Riiight...

 

[Matt Black]

We don't have a right to drive on other people's roads. (BTW, what are "other people's roads?" Their driveways?) Anyway, we have the privilege of driving if we can prove that we are competent at handling a motor vehicle.

"Other people's roads"? The public highway....unless you're saying that's your road, that you own it. (I know plenty of drivers who behave like they think they do own it, but that's another matter.)