Healthcare as a Privilege: 490 Prompt 2

   In his article, "Health Care Is Not a Right" Leonard Peikoff stated, "all legitimate rights have one thing in common: they are rights to action, not to rewards from other people. The American rights impose no obligation on other people…the system guarantees you the chance to work for what you want-not to be given it without effort by somebody else."

  As human beings we are obligated (even though we do not always follow this) to do nothing to harm our fellow human beings; this includes infringing upon the rights of a professional to employ his services as he chooses. To view health care as a right that people have just for being human means that we would have to treat everything else in the same way; things such as clothing, food, and really anything else that would make someone happy. But how is happiness determined since everyone has a different opinion of what it would take to make them happy? If we switched happiness with health care it would have to be measured and distributed by a third party who may or may not know exactly what to do or how much to allow for. Adding that extra party, in this case maybe the government or another insurance company even, it takes away from what the doctor is trying to do, which is to offer his relatively rare services to others. As a professional offering services that others need, he has the right to choose how much he wants to charge for these things, who he wants to serve, and what treatment to give them. If we say that health care is a right and that everybody will get it, and get an equal part of it, then we must also somehow control how our physicians run their businesses which imposes on their rights and privileges. Is it right for us to tell them how much they can charge for services that not that many people can offer, and after they have gone through nearly a decade of schooling for? If this were any other small business people would not be so eager to see it controlled.
 
  In turn there would not be much incentive for most people to work if they could get what they wanted, or even needed, for free or almost free. What some fail to realize is that nothing is really free of cost even if we are not directly billed, someone must shoulder the burden. In terms of health care this would be the government and therefore, the taxpayers. It is argued that the for profit system that is in place now makes and keeps healthcare costs at high levels. However, in the article, "Treating Health Care as a Human Right Would Increase Health Care Costs" Donal J. Boudreaux says, "healthcare, although highly desirable, differs fundamentally from these rights. Because providing healthcare takes scarce resources, offering it free at the point of delivery would raise its cost and reduce availability."As mentioned above, to offer it as a right to everyone, healthcare would somehow need to be controlled, by the government, which would take more tax dollars.

  Healthcare, just like any other business, offers a service to people who want or need it. And just like any other product that we want, we should also consider this a privilege that we work for and not something that is just given out for free to everyone.