The Observation Deck

Honest question: How can you make Healthcare a "Right" when it's a commodity?

Since you cannot assure the creation of a commodity, you cannot guarantee its delivery.

Dennis Kucinich keeps saying that Healthcare should be a Right, but if the government HAS to provide it to the people, then doesn't it also then HAVE to make sure there are people willing to provide it to the government first? What happens if there is a shortage of medical professionals needed to provide this Right? Do your Rights diminish or dissapear?

http://www.themedicusfirm.com/pages/medicus-media-survey-reveals-impact-health-reform

Summary:
Survey finds that 45.7% of physicians would leave the medical profession if a "public option" was implemented.
29.2% would leave if health reform passes, even without a public option.

Bret, I'm not sure if there is an IF...could just be a WHEN.

Roy, those numbers are a bit disingenuous. At the end of the day I am sure half or one fourth of all the Dr.'s like making money more than they do idle threats to pollsters.

Where are they going to go? Truly where?

Aren't we promised life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? If you will not live, that is not the life guarantee. If you are not healthy you cannot pursue happiness.

sharon kinsella wrote:Where are they going to go? Truly where?

Aren't we promised life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? If you will not live, that is not the life guarantee. If you are not healthy you cannot pursue happiness.

We are now opening up Pandora's Box...

This is not about Obama and the Dems caring about your health or pursuit of happiness. This is about a power grab.. Please wake up...

so, you're suggesting that because everybody dies, then the constitution invalidates itself?

How do you guarantee health?

Are you suggesting that a person cannot PERSUE happiness without some minimal level of health?

Regardless, you still havn't answered the question: How can you turn a commodity into a right?

Life is a right, but no one can guarantee the longevity of that life, and the use of a persons' skills or their goods and services to aid in the extension of that life is, indeed, a commodity.

so once again, how do you force the use of one persons skills in order to provide a service to others?

Stephen, Jim, et al.

Please don't confuse the issue, that is exactly what most liberals do in an argument: they don't have a valid answer, so they warp the question into a different tangent.

What gives you the RIGHT to another persons skills, talents, or medical possessions?

If there were no doctors and no medicine, how do you define a right to healthcare?

How do you define a right in the first place?

Jim DeVito wrote:Roy, those numbers are a bit disingenuous. At the end of the day I am sure half or one fourth of all the Dr.'s like making money more than they do idle threats to pollsters.

And if you're wrong? Even Han Solo said, "No reward is worth this!" and that was just over a woman, not government bureaucracy.

sharon kinsella wrote:If you are not healthy you cannot pursue happiness.

Roy whispers to Stephen...should I mention FDR's legs, Helen Keller's ears and eyes or Woodrow Wilson's strokes?
We are not promised equal results in our pursuit of happiness.

Bret Callentine wrote:What gives you the RIGHT to another persons skills, talents, or medical possessions?

If there were no doctors and no medicine, how do you define a right to healthcare?

How do you define a right in the first place?

I posted it once before, and I feel its one of the best explanations I've ever heard. I've cut out the references to health care, so as to stay with your question, Bret.

Judge Andrew Napalitano wrote:What Is a Right?

What is a right? A right is a gift from God that extends from our humanity. Thinkers from St. Thomas Aquinas, to Thomas Jefferson, to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to Pope John Paul II have all argued that our rights are a natural part of our humanity. We own our bodies, thus we own the gifts that emanate from our bodies. So, our right to life, our right to develop our personalities, our right to think as we wish, to say what we think, to publish what we say, our right to worship or not worship, our right to travel, to defend ourselves, to use our own property as we see fit, our right to due process -- fairness -- from the government, and our right to be left alone, are all rights that stem from our humanity. These are natural rights that we are born with. The government doesn’t give them to us and the government doesn’t pay for them and the government can’t take them away, unless a jury finds that we have violated someone else’s rights.

If you'd like to read the whole thing...
http://www.lakewoodobserver.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=8732

Bret, I will answer your questions one after the other so you do not think I am confusing the argument.

Q. What gives you the RIGHT to another persons skills, talents, or medical possessions?

A. No one is holding a gun to the providers head and saying “Take care of these people for free”. The providers do not have an obligation to provide service to any one. (that would be the other side of the “I have a right to service argument”) They provide there service in exchange for a fee. They will still get paid, And as such they will still happily provide there service. If anything they are going to get paid more. There will be more people in the system. They will see more people. They will expand their practice to take in all these new people.

Q. If there were no doctors and no medicine, how do you define a right to healthcare?

A. That makes no sense… If hot doge did not exist why would we argue over who gets the last one.

Q. How do you define a right in the first place?

A. You tell me Mr. “I love my guns and my god.” (Note Bret that is not a direct response to anything you ever said.) To me a right is a agreement to ensure something is happing based on a perceived need. There was a perceived need that we would all have to be packing heat to defend ourselves from the government. And now we have the “right” to bear arms. There was a perceived need to protect people from being tarred, feathered and ran out of town. So now we have a “right” to no be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment.

Jim,

no one is holding a gun, but having a RIGHT to healthcare isn't like any of the other rights you described. In each of those cases, the rights do not impinge on or depend on the actions of another. but in the case of healthcare, if you have a right to it, it implies the requirement that someone provide it to you.

You have the right to bear arms, but you have no right to the government giving you a gun.

I agree with the definition posted above. I have certain natural, unalienable, rights endowed by my creator. With the government, I am given certain legal rights of individual protection. But before this, I don't recall anyone ever assuring me the right to certain property and/or prosperity.

Just because you don't like the answer doesn't mean the question wasn't answered Brett. I did answer the question.

You have an interest in serving the homeless, correct? Do you know how many of them wouldn't be homeless if they have basic services? Did you ever talk to any of them? It would open your eyes to many, many truths that are self-evident.

People don't live in books and editorials, they are not hypotheticals or opinion pieces. They are real and anyone who denies people basic human needs is culpable in my book. Maybe not your, in mine.

Jim DeVito wrote:Q. How do you define a right in the first place?

A. You tell me Mr. “I love my guns and my god.” (Note Bret that is not a direct response to anything you ever said.) To me a right is a agreement to ensure something is happing based on a perceived need. There was a perceived need that we would all have to be packing heat to defend ourselves from the government. And now we have the “right” to bear arms. There was a perceived need to protect people from being tarred, feathered and ran out of town. So now we have a “right” to no be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment.

I perceive a need for food. I imagine you and many others here would too. Yet, Congress has yet to present "Universal Food". Why not? Stephen is correct. This isn't about health, its about control. With their fingers in this pie, they can regulate everything. Maybe not right away, but they'll find reasons, for the good of the country. The provisions are there to slowly and surely push everyone into a government-run plan.

You know what I think got Dennis to change his vote? Watch the first 1:30 of this YouTube clip (I apologize for using Glenn Beck, I'm sure this forces it to lose some level of credibility with some of you, but listen to what Senator Harkin has to say):


This is just a first step. There's no single-payer now, give it time, its coming. Dennis was too interested in getting everything done at once. He wasn't looking at the same big, long-term picture that others have.

Sharon Kinsella wrote:You have an interest in serving the homeless, correct?

Judge Andrew Napalitano wrote:When I make this argument to my Big Government friends, they come back at me with...well, if people don’t have health insurance, they will just go to hospitals and we will end up paying for them anyway. Why should that be? We don’t let people steal food from a supermarket or an apartment from a landlord or clothing from a local shop. Why do we let them take healthcare from a hospital without paying for it? Well, my Big Government friends contend, that’s charity.

They are wrong again. It is impossible to be charitable with someone else’s money. Charity comes from your own heart, not from the government spending your money. When we pay our taxes to the government and it gives that money away, that’s not charity, that’s welfare. When the government takes more from us than it needs to secure our freedoms, so it can have money to give away, that’s not charity, that’s theft. And when the government forces hospitals to provide free health care to those who can’t or won’t care for themselves, that’s not charity, that’s slavery. That’s why we now have constitutional chaos, because the government steals and enslaves, and we outlawed that a long time ago.

Sharon, just because you're uncomfortable with the truth does not mean you're entitled to change it.

people certainly don't operate in hypotheticals, but rights and truths can exist in a vaccum.

culpable for what? At what point does your right for a "basic human need" impinge on my right to life liberty and the persuit of happiness?

If Healthcare is a right, then you are entitled to it, and if it must be provided then how does that effect those that supply it? At what point does your right for care outweigh a providers desire to serve?

Healthcare is a good, it's a service, it is their intrinsic property. How can you possible have a right to someone else's property? That is my question.

Roy, You may be supprised to hear that I am not a huge fan of this health care bill. It is weak. I voted for obama to impliment a single payer socialized takeover of health care.


Bret, I am sorry I do not understand your argument. You ask "At what point does your right for care outweigh a providers desire to serve?" I just do not see too many providers saying "Man I am making to much money providing all thease services to all thease people. I better get out!!"

Sharon, You are right. If I had two wishes for a health care bill it would be... "To ban discrimination based pre existing conditions. And so that no one would lose their house over a health care bill." -- Emmanuel Goldstein Off The Wall 3/16/10

Roy, You may be supprised to hear that I am not a huge fan of this health care bill. It is weak. I voted for obama to impliment a single payer socialized takeover of health care.

This calls for another kumbya beer summit...