Is healthcare a right? why or why not?

[Diuretic]

What "privacy clause"?

Heck that was a while ago, I'll have to did through my memory on that one. But on reflection I think I was searching for the 14th Amendment and not getting it at that time. I came up with the phrase because I couldn't think of the correct terminology.

 

[Cecilie1200]

Heck that was a while ago, I'll have to did through my memory on that one. But on reflection I think I was searching for the 14th Amendment and not getting it at that time. I came up with the phrase because I couldn't think of the correct terminology.

There's no such thing as a "privacy clause" anywhere in the US Constitution, just FYI. It protects very specific aspects of privacy, under very specific conditions, but a generalized "right to privacy" would be very silly, given that any criminal with two brain cells to rub together attempts to commit his crimes in private.

 

[Diuretic]

There's no such thing as a "privacy clause" anywhere in the US Constitution, just FYI. It protects very specific aspects of privacy, under very specific conditions, but a generalized "right to privacy" would be very silly, given that any criminal with two brain cells to rub together attempts to commit his crimes in private.

Well yes. A generalised right to privacy can't really exist. And since the US Constitution seeks to restrain government I suppose the 14th Amendment exists to ensure that what privacy there is available isn't invaded unreasonably. Anyway as I said, it was a while ago and it's difficult for me to remember the context of the discussion and my remarks. There, I actually admitted some fallibility - and what do you know, I can even laugh at myself (I don't need anyone else's help to do that but I know there will be volunteers).

 

[p kirkes]

I would say it's not a right. However the Government provides health care benefits to certain of it's citizens via Medicare or Medicaid.

Cost of doctors visit about $125.00 plus costs of any lab work and medications. If it was a broken leg or arm that required surgery the cost would be about $17,000 based on what my insurance was billed when my kids were growing up.

My employer's, throughout my working years, were very generous. One provided free medical care including dentist for me and the family (6), no deductible (they went out of business in 1982 due to the recession of that period). The other was a monthly insurance cost that ranged between $40.00 in 1982 to $85.00 in 2002 with a small deductible (they are still in business, US government civil service).

Private insurance (not employer related) costs about $300+ for a family plan with deductions and no dental.

Sickness brought on by lifestyle, IE smoking, drinking, certain sexual behavior, diet, lack of exercise should be funded privately at a premium rate. Other sickness due to heredity, pollution, work place environment, accidents etc should also be covered by a non governmental insurance program at a reasonable profit margin. Not like what we are seeing with the compensation of auto/petroleum/financial industry executives.

The hospital system seems to be bloated on facilities that are too elaborate. Skill level of care providers varies widely for the same services, doctors are overloaded, a least it seems that way to me and care in rural areas is nonexistent.

I don't know what the answer is, but the cost of a government managed system is not efficient.
It encourages health care providers to cheat or milk the system almost routinely.

Excuse my ranting.

 

[aztech]

I do not think it is a right, but I think that health care is one thing that any national government is morally due to provide to all of its citizens.

The British System is by no means perfect, but neither is the system here today.

 

[Cecilie1200]

Well yes. A generalised right to privacy can't really exist. And since the US Constitution seeks to restrain government I suppose the 14th Amendment exists to ensure that what privacy there is available isn't invaded unreasonably. Anyway as I said, it was a while ago and it's difficult for me to remember the context of the discussion and my remarks. There, I actually admitted some fallibility - and what do you know, I can even laugh at myself (I don't need anyone else's help to do that but I know there will be volunteers).

I don't think the 14th Amendment even mentions privacy. It contains what is variously called the "liberty clause" or the "due process clause", because it says that no state can deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.

As we all know, Justice Blackmun essentially invented the decision in Roe v. Wade out of whole cloth, imputing things into the 14th Amendment that aren't even vaguely hinted at, much less stated, and this gave rise to the belief that there's a "right to privacy" contained somewhere in the US Constitution.

 

[Cecilie1200]

I would say it's not a right. However the Government provides health care benefits to certain of it's citizens via Medicare or Medicaid.

Which is, as I said, essentially charity, since the government can choose to deny it to you and you have no legal recourse if they do. Seems to me that if you can't sue/press charges when something is denied to you, as you can with any of the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights, for example, you can't possibly be said to have a right to it.

Or, I guess, if someone wants to get philosophical concerning "inalienable rights endowed by God", then I guess you could say you don't have a recognized, enforceable right to it.

Cost of doctors visit about $125.00 plus costs of any lab work and medications. If it was a broken leg or arm that required surgery the cost would be about $17,000 based on what my insurance was billed when my kids were growing up.

My employer's, throughout my working years, were very generous. One provided free medical care including dentist for me and the family (6), no deductible (they went out of business in 1982 due to the recession of that period). The other was a monthly insurance cost that ranged between $40.00 in 1982 to $85.00 in 2002 with a small deductible (they are still in business, US government civil service).

Private insurance (not employer related) costs about $300+ for a family plan with deductions and no dental.

Sickness brought on by lifestyle, IE smoking, drinking, certain sexual behavior, diet, lack of exercise should be funded privately at a premium rate. Other sickness due to heredity, pollution, work place environment, accidents etc should also be covered by a non governmental insurance program at a reasonable profit margin. Not like what we are seeing with the compensation of auto/petroleum/financial industry executives.

It always worries me when people start throwing around the word "should". Makes me wonder what arbitrary moral yardstick they're measuring against.

What's it to you how much a company decides to compensate their executives? Are you a stockholder or on the board of directors?

The hospital system seems to be bloated on facilities that are too elaborate. Skill level of care providers varies widely for the same services, doctors are overloaded, a least it seems that way to me and care in rural areas is nonexistent.

What, precisely, is your point here? Of COURSE skill levels vary widely. That's because PEOPLE vary widely. Some people are bright and talented enough to have graduated from Harvard Medical School; some people went to Guatamala Tech because it was the only place that would have them. And is it really surprising that a rural hospital doesn't have enough business to afford to pay someone a reasonable salary commensurate with the years and years of expensive training required to become a doctor?

It's called "making life choices". You don't just choose a doctor at random out of the phone book. You check him out ahead of time with at least as much care as you would put into researching which hi-def TV you want to buy. If you want to live in a rural area for whatever reason, then you choose to do so with the knowledge that one of the drawbacks is not having state-of-the-art hospital facilities within a five-minute drive.

I don't know what the answer is, but the cost of a government managed system is not efficient.
It encourages health care providers to cheat or milk the system almost routinely.

Excuse my ranting.

You're right there. It isn't just the government system that does it, either. It's the entire concept of third-party payers. Anytime you're dealing with a huge, faceless bureaucracy staffed by drones, be it government or corporate, you're going to get a certain amount of waste, inefficiency, and fraud, because the people pushing the paperwork to pay the bills don't personally own the money. The patient is totally divorced from the process and often doesn't even know how much procedures actually cost at all, and the people who do know don't have the same stake in the outcome or the same priorities as the person consuming the services.

Medical bills would be a lot lower if the patients were actually the ones receiving the bills and laying out the cash, because the government and the insurance companies aren't subject to the same sticker shock.

 

[Cecilie1200]

I do not think it is a right, but I think that health care is one thing that any national government is morally due to provide to all of its citizens.

The British System is by no means perfect, but neither is the system here today.

Um, how can the government be morally obligated to provide something, but it's not a right? Sounds to me like you want to give both answers at once. And WHY is the national government morally obligated to provide health care to anyone?

 

[mattskramer]

Um, how can the government be morally obligated to provide something, but it's not a right? Sounds to me like you want to give both answers at once. And WHY is the national government morally obligated to provide health care to anyone?

As I said before, morality and rights are human inventions. There is no objective concrete way to prove that something is a right or not a right. Who ways that it is right to use your money that you earned as you see fit? Who is to say that it is a right that those that can’t be self reliant to take from those that are self reliant? Again, it is simply two different socio-political philosophies.

 

[Diuretic]

I don't think the 14th Amendment even mentions privacy. It contains what is variously called the "liberty clause" or the "due process clause", because it says that no state can deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.

As we all know, Justice Blackmun essentially invented the decision in Roe v. Wade out of whole cloth, imputing things into the 14th Amendment that aren't even vaguely hinted at, much less stated, and this gave rise to the belief that there's a "right to privacy" contained somewhere in the US Constitution.

Yes, I've had the chance to correct myself on the 14th Amendment's wording and its effect. As for the "invention" aspect, since I'm now a lawyer I wouldn't know but invention or not the effect of the decision is clear, so I presume it's still good law.

 

[Cecilie1200]

As I said before, morality and rights are human inventions. There is no objective concrete way to prove that something is a right or not a right. Who ways that it is right to use your money that you earned as you see fit? Who is to say that it is a right that those that can’t be self reliant to take from those that are self reliant? Again, it is simply two different socio-political philosophies.

Well, that all sounds very lofty and deep and philosophical, but down here in the real world where this is happening and being discussed, rights are, as I have already pointed out, defined as things to which one has a "just claim", ie. something you have a property interest in which can be enforced by law. So there is THAT objective, concrete way to prove that something is or isn't a right. In the United States, one has a legally recognized and enforceable property interest in the money that one earns by legal means. There are arguments as to whether or not it is truly legal for the government to participate in wealth distribution, since it is not actually codified in the appropriate laws that it can do so. The opening question was not "SHOULD this be a right", but "IS this a right", so this is not really a question of philosophy at all, but of statute.

 

[Cecilie1200]

Yes, I've had the chance to correct myself on the 14th Amendment's wording and its effect. As for the "invention" aspect, since I'm now a lawyer I wouldn't know but invention or not the effect of the decision is clear, so I presume it's still good law.

If you're really a lawyer, you know perfectly well that Roe v. Wade is not, and never was, regarded as "good law". It's considered a legal joke, and you will never hear any serious lawyer attempting to argue it on its legal merits, because they can't do it with a straight face.

 

[mattskramer]

Well, that all sounds very lofty and deep and philosophical, but down here in the real world where this is happening and being discussed, rights are, as I have already pointed out, defined as things to which one has a "just claim", ie. something you have a property interest in which can be enforced by law. So there is THAT objective, concrete way to prove that something is or isn't a right. In the United States, one has a legally recognized and enforceable property interest in the money that one earns by legal means. There are arguments as to whether or not it is truly legal for the government to participate in wealth distribution, since it is not actually codified in the appropriate laws that it can do so. The opening question was not "SHOULD this be a right", but "IS this a right", so this is not really a question of philosophy at all, but of statute.

Okay. I think that I may be on a tangent. You are arguing on the basis of law. Okay. Carry on.

 

[Diuretic]

If you're really a lawyer, you know perfectly well that Roe v. Wade is not, and never was, regarded as "good law". It's considered a legal joke, and you will never hear any serious lawyer attempting to argue it on its legal merits, because they can't do it with a straight face.

No, I'm not a lawyer. I have more than a passing familiarity with my own jurisdiction's law and in some aspects of its parent jursidiction's law but I'm not a lawyer and I don't have legal qualifications.

Sorry, I just saw my bloody stupid typo - it should have read, "I'm not a lawyer". My index finger has betrayed me in it's QWERTYness. I hit W (any FBI types monitoring, that's NOT a threat to your president ) and not T.
Of course any shrinks will be checking out The Psychopathology of Everyday Life right now.

Hah, just thought of something, maybe Nixon did the same thing?

"I'm not a crook" - maybe he did the reverse and meant, "I'm now a crook".

I obviously need more coffee, too early here yet.

Sorry about that. I'll leave it in the original post as it's corrected here.

I do know a lot of lawyers though

 

[Andi G]

I don't know whether people are really advocating UHC but the healthcare system in America is definately broken. Nearly everyone who has major surgery these days are practically forced into bankruptcy.

The insurance industry is also too powerful in that they now tell YOU what kind of procedure, tests, surgeries that you are allowed to have.

Everyone knows someone who has fallen into hard times due to medical bills that never seem to end. It's a big issue and if Obama's plan can help, he will be doing his job well.

 

[Cecilie1200]

Okay. I think that I may be on a tangent. You are arguing on the basis of law. Okay. Carry on.

Well, truly, what else are rights - in practice - except entitlements your society has agreed to recognize? And how else does a society make such an agreement except through law?

When you talk about "inalienable rights", as our Founding Fathers did, you're really talking about a philosophical argument about which rights society SHOULD recognize. "Should" is a slippery slope in the US today simply because so many people translate "the world should be like this" into "it's the government's job to make the world like this". In this case, for example, what we get is "people should be able to see a doctor" into "it's the government's job to make sure everyone can see a doctor".

 

[Cecilie1200]

No, I'm not a lawyer. I have more than a passing familiarity with my own jurisdiction's law and in some aspects of its parent jursidiction's law but I'm not a lawyer and I don't have legal qualifications.

Sorry, I just saw my bloody stupid typo - it should have read, "I'm not a lawyer". My index finger has betrayed me in it's QWERTYness. I hit W (any FBI types monitoring, that's NOT a threat to your president ) and not T.
Of course any shrinks will be checking out The Psychopathology of Everyday Life right now.

Hah, just thought of something, maybe Nixon did the same thing?

"I'm not a crook" - maybe he did the reverse and meant, "I'm now a crook".

I obviously need more coffee, too early here yet.

Sorry about that. I'll leave it in the original post as it's corrected here.

I do know a lot of lawyers though

One of my best friends is a lawyer, and I assume he's very good, since he's extremely rich and just argued a case before the US Supreme Court. He'll talk about Roe v. Wade in terms of accepted legal practice and precedents, but you can't make him discuss the actual decision on its legal merits. And you haven't seen talking around an issue until you've seen a criminal defense lawyer do it.

 

[Diuretic]

I rather like "should" and I don't mean in the US domestic political discourse, but just by itself as a concept. "Should" isn't necessarily a slippery slope, it's a precursor to progress, makes people think. But "should" doesn't necessarily lead to "will", there is, after all, the legislative process to turn a "should" into a "will."

 

[aztech]

As I said before, morality and rights are human inventions. There is no objective concrete way to prove that something is a right or not a right. Who ways that it is right to use your money that you earned as you see fit? Who is to say that it is a right that those that can’t be self reliant to take from those that are self reliant? Again, it is simply two different socio-political philosophies.

So the Government is not morally bound to look after its own people...hmm...

Then what is its purpose?

 

[mattskramer]

So the Government is not morally bound to look after its own people...hmm...

Then what is its purpose?

I think that government should, to a certain extent, redistribute resources to the needy. I doubt that is what Cecilie was talking about. Cecilie was arguing if, legally, the government has a responsibility to redistribute wealth. There is a difference. I think that I am in agreement with you. Yet, if you are debating philosophy, there is no proof to what is a “right”. I might think that government has a right but where is the proof – unless you conclude that the proof is in written law. Then one must debate what the law says.