Philosophy and Healthcare
Does anyone you have the right to healthcare?
Very simply put, no. It is not a legal right in the United States, nor is it a right everyone intrinsically possesses. Your inalienable rights (i.e. no one can morally take these from you) are your right to life, liberty and your pursuit of happiness. You own your life, your liberty, and your pursuit of happiness and everything you own is a product of these rights. Therefore, you and only you are responsible for yourself, your rights and your property. Our government was founded on these principles, and is put in place to ensure these basic rights are protected.
Socialized healthcare is unconstitutional and immoral
Socialized healthcare operates on the principle that it’s okay to take your money and give it to someone else. This is theft, and a very clear infringement on anyone’s most basic rights. The most common objection is that no one should die because they can’t afford healthcare and therefore a system which ensures everyone gets healthcare is the most moral. Although this is a wonderful and well-intentioned statement, it is fallacious and wrong because it assumes that 1) people should be forced to help other people, and 2) that people would stand by and watch someone die if they weren’t forced to help. I find it odd that most people who support socialist policies are obviously truly well intentioned, caring and good people, yet they don't believe people will help their fellow man in need without the use of force. Another point often brought up, If someone can’t afford healthcare how are they going to protect their right to life? The answer is simple; friends, families, charities, hospitals, churches, etc. will help them out. If you don’t believe this is true look no further than any tragedy, of any kind, big or small and you'll know this is true. It’s part of human nature to help those that are truly in need. Can you honestly say you’d sit by and watch someone die knowing you had the ability to help them?
Socialized healthcare destroys personal responsibility
A socialized system rewards irresponsible and unproductive people, at the expense of responsible and productive people. When you make the government responsible for your health and healthcare decisions, you don’t only steal from them you take away a major incentive to stay healthy and productive, why work for something if you can get it free? This essentially creates people that are dependent on tax payer handouts; this further robs and victimizes productive members of society. That raises another question though, if people can’t get free handouts from the government, wont the same people just leach off friends, family, charities, and whatnot? Well, yes and no, some people can and will still rely on others to support their lazy ass, there a few important differences though. These reasons are:
- It’s extremely easy to contact a random government official and ask for assistance or worse, be given assistance without even asking. In contrast, it’s much more difficult to admit you can’t take care of yourself and ask someone you know for help.
- Accountability, there is no accountability in a socialized system. Once it's decided that EVERYONE has the right to healthcare regardless of ability to pay...then who is going to tell the people dependent on the sytem to get off their ass and be a contributing member of society? This isn't a problem In a capitalist system, the incentive to be productive is obvious and direct, the people who are giving the assistance to the person in need will have an obvious and direct influence on this person.
- The last and most important difference though is the moral factor. No one is having any of their inalienable rights taken from them in a free-market system.
Government spying on your private parts.
Oh no! Not my private parts?! Yes, your private parts, the government doesn’t believe you have testicular cancer and needs to see your balls to make sure you're not defrauding the nation. A socialized system throws the Doctor to patient confidentiality out the window, the whole system hinges on this fact. If the government doesn’t know your personal information, then they can’t provide the doctor with the money needed to fix you. Well, they could but they’d have no idea whether you and your doctor are cheating the system. Even then, it doesn’t really matter; the doctor could make up whatever BS is necessary to get the funding. This sort of fraud is impossible in a capitalist system, for obvious reasons. This brings me to my final point…
Greed, Evil? Good?
Greed, it’s often quoted as the reason capitalism is evil and socialism is good. Greed and greedy people are evil; they only care about themselves! Oh how true, greed by definition is all about being selfish, greed however is not evil, far from it. Every single human that’s ever lived is greedy, it’s an undeniable characteristic of humanity, it’s built into our genetic makeup and plays a role in every decision anyone makes. People will always be looking out for number one. This is why capitalism works, and it’s the same reason socialism fails. A Socialist healthcare system doesn’t account for greed, instead the assumption is made that people wont lie, cheat and steal to live the good life, shooting up heroine and eating cupcakes and then footing the bill to the rest of society for their gastric bypass and heart transplant. These facts have been displayed throughout this post. A socialist healthcare system is/would be a playground for greed and essentially stifles humanities true good-intentions, after all…no need to help someone if the government is taking care of him. This is the number one reason I support a free-market healthcare system. A free-market system keeps greed in check through competition and paves the way for people to use their good-intentions wherever they would like to use them.
When I first saw the movie “Wall Street” many years ago and ‘Gordan Gekko’ (Michael Douglas) made his famous speech “greed is good” I hated him, I thought he was completely wrong and way-off base. Only in the last couple years have I realized, he was right Greed is Good.
I guess this only leaves one final point/question, Socialized healthcare is cheaper and more efficient…right? The answer? maybe. I’ll post my thoughts on the economics of healthcare reform in a post later this week.
