Tuesday, March 7, 2017

Healthcare is No Right

Who would be the fool to take you
Be more than just kind
Step into a life of maybe
Love is hard to find
In the church of the poison mind
--Culture Club

Like its predecessors Medicare and Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act has propagated the falsehood that healthcare--stated more precisely, access to healthcare goods and services regardless of ability to pay--is a right. Properly defined, a right is something that exists simultaneously among people that imposes no obligation on others except for the requirement of non-interference.

Access to healthcare regardless of ability to pay is not a right because it interferes with peaceful production and exchange. If people seek to acquire healthcare goods and services without paying what producers ask, then they must either a) force producers to discount or work pro bono, or b) force a third party to pay for their healthcare. This approach, also known as socialized medicine, is akin to slavery, and tramples the natural rights of individuals to live their lives as they see fit.

Rather than a right, healthcare benefits conferred on some at the expense of others are more appropriately viewed as a privilege.

That government is seen as a means to enforce this privilege compounds the wrong. The only rights that we can legitimately delegate to government are ones that we possess as individuals. None of us has the right to forcibly take property from one person for the benefit of another.

Because as individuals we cannot forcibly take healthcare goods and services from others, we cannot legitimately delegate authority to do so to government.

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