No Right to "Free" Health Care

[galtgulch]

Just wanted to share this op ed

www.aynrand.org

The following op-ed was published on June 11 at Businessweek.com at http://www.businessweek.com/debateroom/arc...rsal_healt.html

By Onkar Ghate

The cause of the U.S. health-care mess is governmental interference. The solution, therefore, is not more governmental control, whether via nationalized medical insurance or a government takeover of medicine.

Health insurance costs so much today because the government, on the premise that there exists a "right" to health care at someone else's expense, has promised Americans a free lunch. When a person can consume medical services without needing to consider how to pay for them--Medicare, Medicaid, or the individual's employer will foot the bill--demand skyrockets. The $2,000 elective liver test he or she would have forgone in favor of a better place to live suddenly becomes a necessity when its cost seems to add up to $0.

As the expense of providing "free" health care erupts accordingly, the government tries to control costs by clamping down on the providers of health care. A massive net of regulations descends on doctors, nurses, insurers, and drug companies. As more of their endeavors are rendered unprofitable, drug companies produce fewer drugs, and insurers limit their policies or exit the industry.

Doctors and nurses, now buried in paperwork and faced with the endless, unjust task of appeasing government regulators, find their love for their work dissipating. They cut their hours or leave the profession. Many young people decide never to enter those fields in the first place.

What happens when demand skyrockets and supply is restricted? The price of medicine explodes. What was once to serve as a free lunch for everyone becomes lunch for no one.

The solution? Remove all controls. Recognize each citizen's right and responsibility to pay for his or her own health care, and return to insurers the entrepreneurial freedom to come up with innovative products.

True freedom would bring health care into the reach of the average U.S. citizen again--just as it has done for other goods and services, such as computers, cell phones, and food.

Dr. Onkar Ghate is a senior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute.

Copyright © 2007 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.

[Matus1976]

Just wanted to share this op ed

www.aynrand.org

The following op-ed was published on June 11 at Businessweek.com at http://www.businessweek.com/debateroom/arc...rsal_healt.html

This is a good OpEd, short, concise, and powerfull. I am very worried at the growing popularity of this "Universal Health Care" movement. It seems to be getting more and more popular across all political spectrums. Universal Health Care will be the death of us all. But OpEd's like this will do little to nothing to change the minds of people who are obsessed with their "right" to Health Care.

In that theme, I encourage people to write more pieces directed toward a general audience, post them to blogs, do some pod casts, etc. I wrote my "Four Freedoms" essay as an attempt to gently introduce people (liberals) to the idea that demanding a 'right' to something that is the product of another man's effort is demanding the right to enslave them.

Four Freedoms

http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/in...ic=3246&hl=

It's preaching to the choir here, but you might be able to get a socialist to think twice about some of these concepts with it.

[Steve Gagne]

All fine and dandy in a free marketplace.

But when you have oligarchic NGO's acting as conspiracies in restraint of trade, specifically health insurance companies, you have market distortions on the order of socialistic government interference.

You want fair, free health care, that is, a health care system that is not coerced? Outlaw health insurance. Otherwise it's just another kind of class warfare, another instance of one gang or another battling for possession of the law (as well as for all the goodies).

[bmacwilliam]

Just wanted to share this op ed

www.aynrand.org

The following op-ed was published on June 11 at Businessweek.com at http://www.businessweek.com/debateroom/arc...rsal_healt.html

This is a good OpEd, short, concise, and powerfull. I am very worried at the growing popularity of this "Universal Health Care" movement. It seems to be getting more and more popular across all political spectrums. Universal Health Care will be the death of us all. But OpEd's like this will do little to nothing to change the minds of people who are obsessed with their "right" to Health Care.

In that theme, I encourage people to write more pieces directed toward a general audience, post them to blogs, do some pod casts, etc. I wrote my "Four Freedoms" essay as an attempt to gently introduce people (liberals) to the idea that demanding a 'right' to something that is the product of another man's effort is demanding the right to enslave them.

Four Freedoms

http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/in...ic=3246&hl=

It's preaching to the choir here, but you might be able to get a socialist to think twice about some of these concepts with it.

The obvious error in this line of thinking is making the unwarranted connection between universal healthcare and whether or not healthcare is a right. The two concepts are not inextricably linked in any mind that has spent any time thinking about the issue. As usual, the issue is nuanced and complex - another two concepts that seem to regularly escape your grasp.

For example: Is there a big problem when a wealthy society provides a basic form of some kind of a universal LUXURY? Some philosophical prohibition against that?

So, in your mind there's some kind of arbitrary difference between funding a collective army to protect citizens' basic freedoms, and funding healthcare to protect citizens' basic health?

Why is there a difference? Because Rand said so?

But what about the 'rights' issue? I thought life was at the top of the list? Hmmm....

Somehow now life is less valuable when it comes to the healthcare argument. How far down the list does life go when it's politically inconvenient to value life?

_________, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Oops.

So, are you going to be logically consistent or just politically consistent?

Bob

Edited June 15, 2007 by Bob_Mac

[Matus1976]

The obvious error in this line of thinking is making the unwarranted connection between universal healthcare and whether or not healthcare is a right. The two concepts are not inextricably linked in any mind that has spent any time thinking about the issue. As usual, the issue is nuanced and complex - another two concepts that seem to regularly escape your grasp.

Gee Bob, I didnt realize there was a difference. The obvious error here is that you take 10 seconds to read my posts and immediately devolve into an 'insult at all costs' mode, wheres the moderator? What happened to that requirement for polite and sincere discussions? all I see here is sniveling pretentious drivel.

I don't recognize 'nuanced and complex' topics, implying I am ignorant and simple? Perhaps I was writing about a particular topic in this particular essay (demanding a right to universal health care) and it's consequences, and not every single possible manifestation of health care, apparently I shouldnt write anything unless I write every related thing about it.

What you don't get, Bob, is that I am here to discuss and share ideas, not converse with a Jerk bent only on assinine disingeneous attacks. So drop that crappy attitude or don't bother posting to me, because I won't bother responding.

Now, if you care to read what you are commenting on, you would have noticed I wrote in this very essay

'Now let me be clear, I think as many people as possible ought to have the best health care, education, shelter and food possible. But under absolutely no circumstances is it right to advocate forced enslavement of people to provide these things. Each and every one of us has a right, fundamentally, to our own life, is it ours to live freely as we choose.'

You wrote:

For example: Is there a big problem when a wealthy society provides a basic form of some kind of a universal LUXURY? Some philosophical prohibition against that?

Gee, wow Bob, arent you a smarty! I hadnt thought of that!!

Of course there is a difference between wanting to provide a minimal level of health care for all humans and demanding we provide all posible medical technologies to everyone who needs them, whether it be a operation with a 1 in a thousand chance at success which costs 10 million dollars or a 1,000 drug with a 1 in a million chance of success. A society / government which seeks to provide a rational minimal baseline is much better than one that either forces everyone down to an equal level (as most universal health care systems do) or demands everyone get's everything they could ever possibly need (which implicitly leads to the previous scenario anyway). While one is 'better' it is still based on a premise of forced slavery, though a system where a minimal level of health care is provided while still allowing those who can afford better health care to get whatever care they want, is not one I would start a revolt over. Now if that minimal level of health care is provided voluntaraly it's all fine, when it comes from coerced taxation, it's not, when a population is wholly enslaved, it is a pure embodiment of evil.

So, in your mind there's some kind of arbitrary difference between funding a collective army to protect citizens' basic freedoms, and funding healthcare to protect citizens' basic health?

Why is there a difference? Because Rand said so?

Why is there no difference, bceause *you* said so? Who are you? Why should I care what you say?

But what about the 'rights' issue? I thought life was at the top of the list? Hmmm....

Again, obviously, you didnt read this simple essay. You can not have a *right* to something that comes from the product of someone elses mind or effort, that is a *right* to enslave them, to force them to supply your needs. A right to life, is the right to defend yourself from any attacks on your life, it is not a 'right' to force somone else to sustain it. As I wrote

In fact, demanding a *right* to anything that is the result of someone else’s labor or mind means that the people who make those things have no rights. There can be NO RIGHTS in a society which demands the enslavement of all the producers and providers. No one EVER has a right to enslave

Somehow now life is less valuable when it comes to the healthcare argument. How far down the list does life go when it's politically inconvenient to value life?

_________, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Oops.

Oopps is right, you obviously compeltely misunderstand what the founders of this nation argued for. You suggest that since this popular phrase says you have a "right to life" that means you have a right to force someone else to provide for you all the things necessary for life, instead of what the founders said, which is that you have right to your own life, or to define the difference more objectively, you have a right to be free from coercion on your life. You have a right to be free from constraints placed upon your life. And again, in this case, 'right' does not mean you get to demand someone provide you with these things, but instead that you are morally justified in defending them or attacking assaults on them. Clearly I can not produce "liberty" and hand it to you, nor can I manufacture "happiness" and give it to you because you demand it, but somehow you think that a 'right to life' is a right to demand the enslavement of all producers of the necessities of life; shelter, health, food and water, even while "right to liberty" and a "right to the pursuit of happiness" makes absolute no sense in that context.

So, are you going to be logically consistent or just politically consistent?

I am logically consist, you are the one asserting that we have a *right* to enslave providers. *that* is logically inconsistent, you have no right to enslave anyone, ever, for any reason. Please define 'right' before we continue this discussion, my essay clearly defines what I mean by 'rights' in these contexts.

[bmacwilliam]

Now if that minimal level of health care is provided voluntaraly it's all fine, when it comes from coerced taxation, it's not, when a population is wholly enslaved, it is a pure embodiment of evil.

Hmmm...

You didn't answer the most pertinent question. Not surprising. Let me put it another way...

If you can see the need for a common defense and therefore justify the funding of such to protect a society against the forces of evil (maybe you don't agree?), but don't believe that a society should fund any healthcare via "coerced taxation" as you put it, how is this consistent?

But there's deeper questions:

Rand wrote

1) "In a capitalist society, no man or group may initiate the use of force against others. The only function of the government, in such a society, is the task of protecting man’s rights, i.e., the task of protecting him from physical force"

2) "No man can have a right to impose an unchosen obligation, an unrewarded duty or an involuntary servitude on another man. There can be no such thing as the right to enslave."

The problem is these statements are contradictory unless the government workers are slaves (or volunteers - yeah right) and work for free. But if taxation funds them, then the society is enslaved. :poke:

So what about Rand's idea of "Voluntary Taxation" other than it's a contradiction in terms? So, theoretically taxes could be withheld by the individual or sent to a competing "authority". Sovereignty goes right out the window now. How could any government claim a monopoly on the proper use of force any more than a monopoly on logic and reason?

Here's another Rand quote:

"RAND: In principle, I believe that taxation should be voluntary, like everything else. But how one would implement this is a very complex question. I can only suggest certain methods, but I would not attempt to insist on them as a definitive answer."

That was a clear evasion because she damn well knew her foolish position could not hold up to any scrutiny whatsoever. She cut the topic soon afterward.

"PLAYBOY: Would you create any new government departments or agencies?

RAND: No, and I truly cannot discuss things that way. I am not a government planner nor do I spend my time inventing Utopias. I'm talking about principles whose practical applications are clear. If I have said that I am opposed to the initiation of force, what else has to be discussed?

"nor do I spend my time inventing Utopias."

Which was of course a lie. She had spent a great deal of time doing just that. It was the scrutiny she despised and she was willing to lie to justify evading it.

So we have at least two big problems here.

1) Taxation for an army to protect freedom is OK, taxation to protect health is not.

2) Armies are OK, taxation isn't. The draft is also evil.

She wouldn't explain this nonsense because in my opinion, she knew her position was contradictory and foolish. One of many examples where she chose politics over logic, just like you are doing.

Bob

Edited June 18, 2007 by Bob_Mac

[BaalChatzaf]

So we have at least two big problems here.

1) Taxation for an army to protect freedom is OK, taxation to protect health is not.

2) Armies are OK, taxation isn't. The draft is also evil.

She wouldn't explain this nonsense because in my opinion, she knew her position was contradictory and foolish. One of many examples where she chose politics over logic, just like you are doing.

Bob

An argument could probably be made for health measures designed to prevent epidemics and communicable diseases and it would be similar to that supporting a tax funded armed force to deal with foreign enemies.

Medical care for those whose illness is brought about by the own foolishness and is not contagious should not be provided at public expense. Those who clog their arteries because they are gluttons should pay for their own folly. Those who smoke, overeat and do not exercise sufficiently bring about their own destruction but do not impose it on others. Heart disease is not contagious.

I would have no problem enforcing vaccination against contagious diseases and enforcing quarantines. That is a matter of collective defense. If X is dying of arterial disease because he chows down fatty food, that is his problem. If X has a form of T.B. that is impervious to antibiotics, that is also my problem. X should be isolated and quarantined until he is no longer dangerous to others.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited June 18, 2007 by BaalChatzaf

[Brant Gaede]

Pure freedom is not generally practical and if achieved would be unstable.

We must always fight for our freedoms for we are always to some extent enslaved by governments. The fighting makes us strong and helps make possible our survival. If we are mostly free then we are generally free.

We need more--a lot more--freedom. We don't need nor can we ever get pure freedom. Taxes per se don't make us slaves, but they can be so high and onerous we be slaves.

Rand no more justified her political Utopia than she justified the perfect, ideal man--or an ideal, basically complete philosophy. Her head was in the clouds; she wasn't grounded. She got hard and short at intimations that her philosophy might be coming up short--as in that "Playboy" interview.

Objectivists need to face up to the fact that Ayn Rand WAS a Utopian and that that was a great source of her attraction to them and they need to get real to make real use of her ideas.

Beneath the surface she had a big, deep streak of conservatism, too, especially the older she got, in spite of all her animadversion upon it. Look at how Greenspan ended up.

The ideal is a point of reference--aim at it, fire! Go toward it.

--Brant

Edited June 19, 2007 by Brant Gaede

[bmacwilliam]

FWIW,

The posts from BaalChatzaf and Brant were thoughful and interesting ones.

Matus, that's what happens when you think about these issues instead of spewing raw rote dogma nonsense.

Bob

[Matus1976]

FWIW,

The posts from BaalChatzaf and Brant were thoughful and interesting ones.

Matus, that's what happens when you think about these issues instead of spewing raw rote dogma nonsense.

Bob

Actually, Bob, I found BaalChatzaf's and Brant's comments thoughtful and interesting as well, as well as many of yours in your earlier response, and I was planning on responding today.

However, here again, you have devolved back into condescending prick mode, so I have no interest in discussing this further with you. Bob, a little discussion pointer for you. Either you are present to discuss and develop ideas with like minded individuals, or you are here to troll and pander to your own ego, the fact that you so readily and easily resort to pot shots, vague generlizations and insults indicates to me you are of the latter group of people. If you are here to discuss and develop ideas, then doing so in such a pretentious and condescending manner indicates you respect neither my mind, my ability to come to logical conclusions, nor my background of knowledge, interests, thoughts, nor my values or my information set. You are not omniscient, so stop acting like everyone who hasnt come to the same conclusion as you is a trilobyte. I dont particular care what you think of me, but I won't be discussing anything with someone who is incapable of extending the most basic courtersies to another human being. So have fun with your proselytizing, adios.

Edited June 19, 2007 by Matus1976

[BaalChatzaf]

All fine and dandy in a free marketplace.

But when you have oligarchic NGO's acting as conspiracies in restraint of trade, specifically health insurance companies, you have market distortions on the order of socialistic government interference.

You want fair, free health care, that is, a health care system that is not coerced? Outlaw health insurance. Otherwise it's just another kind of class warfare, another instance of one gang or another battling for possession of the law (as well as for all the goodies).

What is wrong with voluntary health insurance? It is a voluntary risk spreading scheme. It goes back to shipping companies in England spreading the risk of loss at sea. We have fire insurance, auto insurance. Why not medical care and hospital expense insurance? As long as the premium is commensurate with the risk, what is the problem?

Ba'al Chatzaf

[bmacwilliam]

FWIW,

The posts from BaalChatzaf and Brant were thoughful and interesting ones.

Matus, that's what happens when you think about these issues instead of spewing raw rote dogma nonsense.

Bob

Actually, Bob, I found BaalChatzaf's and Brant's comments thoughtful and interesting as well, as well as many of yours in your earlier response, and I was planning on responding today.

However, here again, you have devolved back into condescending prick mode, so I have no interest in discussing this further with you. Bob, a little discussion pointer for you. Either you are present to discuss and develop ideas with like minded individuals, or you are here to troll and pander to your own ego, the fact that you so readily and easily resort to pot shots, vague generlizations and insults indicates to me you are of the latter group of people. If you are here to discuss and develop ideas, then doing so in such a pretentious and condescending manner indicates you respect neither my mind, my ability to come to logical conclusions, nor my background of knowledge, interests, thoughts, nor my values or my information set. You are not omniscient, so stop acting like everyone who hasnt come to the same conclusion as you is a trilobyte. I dont particular care what you think of me, but I won't be discussing anything with someone who is incapable of extending the most basic courtersies to another human being. So have fun with your proselytizing, adios.

The problem is that you, Matus, continually make foolish, grandiose but unsupportable claims.

"Universal Healthcare will be the death of us all"

Your emotionally and intellectually immature proclamations elicit a response. Whether you intend to or not, that statement is perfect example of a condescending and insulting remark to those who have given thoughtful consideration to the issue. I don't care if you respond or not. Honestly, it'd be a lot more fun if you'd put together a coherent argument here and there, but in the meantime I'll respond to your nonsense as I see fit regardless of whether you engage or not.

"Either you are present to discuss and develop ideas with like minded individuals"

No, I'm not here for like mindedness, in fact there's only a select few that I would presume to have much intellectually in common. I am here for challenges, development, and refinement of what I consider to be truth and the pursuit of it. I care nothing for any 'community' aspect of this. I have plenty of that in the real world. Troll? Only for you....

If you are here to discuss and develop ideas, then doing so in such a pretentious and condescending manner indicates you respect neither my mind, my ability to come to logical conclusions, nor my background of knowledge, interests, thoughts, nor my values or my information set.

Now that's something that I can wholeheartedly agree with without the slightest modification.

Progress.

Bob

[Matus1976]

Troll? Only for you....

nuff said. I have set my profile options to ignore your posts.

Edited June 19, 2007 by Matus1976

[Matus1976]

Pure freedom is not generally practical and if achieved would be unstable.

You should clarify what you mean by freedom, from my essay

Material Freedom – free from cost, cost as labor or effort or money

Physical Freedom – a literal freedom of action and movement, constrained only by the laws of physics

Metaphysical Freedom – literal volitional freedom unrestrained by the laws of physics, being able to do absolutely anything you wish instantly without effort. Includes being free from being forced to do something against your will by the laws of nature. Metaphysical freedom is a philosophical impossibility.

Political Freedom – Freedom from being forced to do something against your will by someone else.

A literal society in which everyone is morally justified in doing absolutely anything they want, including attacking other people, is a murderous anarchy and is definately unstable. But is the literal complete freedom of action (including the action of assaulting others) what you mean by freedom? "Pure" 'Political' freedom, from the definition I use above, I do not think would be unstable.

Rand no more justified her political Utopia than she justified the perfect, ideal man--or an ideal, basically complete philosophy. Her head was in the clouds; she wasn't grounded....Objectivists need to face up to the fact that Ayn Rand WAS a Utopian and that that was a great source of her attraction to them and they need to get real to make real use of her ideas.

What is it you mean by a "utopian" are you suggesting she devised her philosophy on the basis of what an ideal society ought to be like? That couldnt be further from the truth, if you want that look to Plato's Republic. One could easily imagine some particular set of goverment rules, regulations, taxes, force, etc, might produce a society more *ideal* in some arbitrary sense than they type of society that might emerge from the interactions among men and government that Rand advocated. Perhaps, in some utilitarian sense, the median standard of living would be better in this case, or in another sense the average life expectancy could be better, etc. Perhaps if the government forced everyone to excercise, the median life expectancy would be longer. Utopians seek, as an end goal, the manifestation of some ideal they believe is optimal for society, and subsequently, all the individual members of it. Their end goal is society. Rands end goal is the individual.

Rand presented a philosophical foundation for the proper interactions among men and the proper role of government, never arguing that such a society would be "utopian" (free of suffering, pain, illness, etc) but it would be as close to a just society as possible. Can you expand more on what you mean by Rand being a "utopian" ?

Everything else you write I generally agree with.