It seems that there are some folks out there that want to change the meaning of words to whatever makes them feel better. Today the word I’ve chosen is Rights. I saw a Bernie tweet talking about rights. Not just rights, but Human Rights:
Bernie Sanders@BernieSanders
Dental care is a human right.
Mental health care is a human right.
Reproductive health care is a human right.
That is why they’re covered under Medicare for All.
1:48 PM · Nov 17, 2019 ·
The comments are amazing, as things tend to be on Twitter. In one corner, we have the free-market people saying that if it requires someone else’s labor it cannot possibly be a right. In the other, people with severe cognitive dissonance. They believe the simply by virtue of wanting to help people, the actual people giving that care should do so free of charge. Either that, or they think that “the government” is going to pay them from the Great Money Tree in Washington. These are, of course, the same people that think that taking all the money away from rich people will make everyone else rich, happy, and successful. What happens if service providers are no longer willing to provide the service at the cost paid by the government? Will we conscript doctors and nurses? How much of a right is it then? And what about the inevitable increase in demand? As we see every time something is subsidized by the government, demand increases because the beneficiary is not out of pocket. Costlier services will then start to take a really long time to get, or panels of bureaucrats will have to determine who gets service and who doesn’t. Insurance companies already do that, by the way, and I don’t like it. That’s why I’m for complete liberalization of the healthcare market.
Very few commenters stated what I think is the crux of the issue: rights are only negative. For example, I saw someone bring up the 2nd Amendment and ask, ‘if guns are a right, why doesn’t the gummint provide ’em’? Well, the right to keep and bear arms is supposed to mean that no one may interfere in your exercise of that right. Put another way, no one has to provide me with arms to bear, the government simply can’t stop me from doing so. The same way I believe health care is a right; if you can obtain the service, no one may prevent you from doing so. This is not to say that I think the health care industry doesn’t need major changes. I just want the government not to be the ones initiating said change.
Wait, that’s not true.
I want them to get rid of every regulation in place that has made the system the way it is. Let’s face it; a free market would look WAY different. There would be innovation not just in the toys traditional medicine uses but in the way we look at all things health. And maybe, just maybe, we’ll get away from the one-size-fits-most model and start individualizing health the way it should be. Also, if we get rid of protectionist laws for the drug companies and abolish the FDA we may finally get some solid science going and stop with cartelization of medicine, also possibly going back to using natural products instead of all the chemicals that the drug companies have to use to make money, since they can’t patent nature.
I’ll go on in another post but I can imagine a very different approach, and the outcomes I’ve personally had from moving away from the advice of my doctor have been astounding. I look and feel better than I have since I was a teenager (aside from the damage I’ve accrued in the intervening years, and all the grey hair of course) and it all started because I wanted to stop having to take antacids all the time.
I’ve rambled again, but the point is this; I can’t force you to exercise my rights for me. By saying not that everyone has a right to obtain service, but rather that everyone has a right to service, Bernie is making a very bad faith argument for your rights. I’d give him the benefit of the doubt and assume ignorance, but he’s proven to be too much of a hypocrite already.
