Road to Ruin

Standing like a stone on the old plantation
The rich old man would have never let him in
Good enough to hire not good enough to marry
When it all happens nobody wins
--Bruce Hornsby & The Range

In a missive concerning the current health care debate, an MD writes the following:

"Medical care is not a right. Medical care is a service provided by doctors and others to individuals who want to purchase it. A patient presents to the doctor with a request for care. The fact that the patient has a serious condition — even a life threatening one — does not entitle him, as his right, to the services of the doctor. To claim that he does means that doctors and others who provide these services have no rights, or that society can deliberately ignore these rights for the 'greater good.'"

She's correct. Any system that forces care on a provider and/or fixes the price of care is a system of coercion.

Health care is not a right. In the context of a free society, individuals cannot claim access to goods or services that, thru the fulfullment of those claims, violates the rights of others. Medical professionals become the slaves of those seeking 'rightful' services.

She also notes that today's health care system is far from a free market, given the dominant government interventions already in place.

As she suggests, heading down a path toward increased government control of this system promises a lower standard of living.