Healthcare As A Human Right: The Case Against

Healthcare For All, Part Three

The Bill of Rights establishes rights that are not to be restricted by government.   Freedoms of speech and assembly, the rights to bear arms and to due process, and prohibitions on the government from occupying or seizing most private property are all enumerated.  Doctrines of human rights also set out to guarantee liberties from government oppression.  What these long-cherished freedoms have in common is that they each limit government action.

A right to healthcare, on the other hand, when applied would increase government action toward and on individuals.  Instead of keeping government out of individual choices, it would move the government to provide a service that members of a sizeable minority, at present, are unable to secure.  The objections rest in the hesitation to make government larger and more intrusive, transfer income, and, in some proposals, interrupt free enterprise in the name of a right.  Not a liberty or a prohibition on meddling at all, healthcare as a human right would place a burden on one segment of the populace to take care of another.  And it would be expensive.

Granted, money is spent to guarantee certain rights.  Courts and law enforcement are necessary to provide due process and enforce contracts and protect private property holders, and the costs of these services are borne by the taxpayers.  But to fund these services does not insist on one taxpayer surrendering funds directly to support another citizen.

Calling healthcare a human right is integral to those demanding healthcare for all.  To meet this goal would require larger public/private partnerships, or the creation of a single payer system and the limitation of the private insurance market.  Public/private partnerships have been successful in the space program, but results in healthcare since the introduction of the ACA have been mixed at best.  And it all costs more than expected as healthcare costs grow far beyond the rate of inflation and many individuals either choose not to participate in the program, or find participation too expensive.

People have rights to make individual choices about their lifestyle, but the establishment of healthcare as a human right would prompt calls, arguably justifiable, to limit these choices.  If one calls upon others to fund their healthcare, don’t those who pay the bills have the right to insist that the covered individual not squander the payers’ money by making the poor life choices that come with an unhealthy lifestyle?  Why should part of the populace have to sacrifice for another if some of those ill are sick as a result of their own unhealthy habits, freely chosen?

I think no one, not even those who deny healthcare is a human right, wants to see people suffer when help is readily available to others facing the same illnesses.  And I think no one wants to see others suffer from illnesses that basic care would eliminate.  Some provisions for those in poverty are necessary and should be provided in the name of social justice.  But claims that something that gives some a benefit while forcing others to pay for it without influence, thus expanding rights for some while limiting the rights of others; claims that something like this is a right is dubious and unprecedented.