Universal Healthcare: A right or privilege?

To answer the question, is universal health care a right or a privilege one needs to instead consider the following questions. Is access to universal health care a right that should be guaranteed to all Americans? Do all citizens have a right to the same level of care? Or, do all citizens have a right to some minimum level of care? In my personal opinion, I agree with the final question. In a democratic society such as the U.S. all individuals should be free to pursue their own concept of what they deem a productive life. Along with being provided a basic minimum level of health care, which is a responsibility particular to the government. 

            Services to prevent life threatening diseases are a benefit provided by the Government. The Government also provides healthcare to these specific groups who are otherwise unable to pay for and receive care: the elderly (Medicare), poor children (Medicaid), poor adults (Medicaid, and state or local general assistance), the disabled (Medicare and Medicaid), Veterans (Veterans administration), and Native Americans (Indian Health Service). Now, these services that are administered by the government are imperative in the regard that they satisfy the “minimum” component. I do not consider cosmetic surgery or anything that does not directly affect your well-being and life as something that should be provided by the Government. In other words, the Government is not obliged to provide access to all services citizens deem “they cannot live without.” In the wise words of a Leonard Peikoff, “you have a right to work, not to rob others of the fruits of their work, not to turn others into sacrificial, rightless animals laboring to fulfill your needs” (Peikoff, 1994).

            At a certain point, a line must be drawn to discern when health care becomes a right versus a privilege. Defining that precise line is substantially difficult since states with different economic and social capacities have different understandings of what an adequate standard of living truly is. However, I profoundly believe that immediate attention should be attributed towards the following enumeration: increasing the distribution of clean water, establishing sanitary living conditions, maintain sufficient food stockpiles, performing widespread vaccinations and medications, providing prenatal and maternal care (to alleviate the high mortality rates) and educating people about disease prevention and malnutrition. While some of these criteria may not apply to the United States directly, it still addresses the global issue of what health care should be like everywhere. Everyone deserves the aforementioned points for they are individual’s rights. How they utilize it is up to their own discretion. However, with each criterion there must be a limit to the utilization of it. In other words, if you already have enough food for you and your loved ones you cannot request more until the existing storage has been depleted. Now, numerous other questions arise. How can we let others control how much food we get? Why does that family get more food than mine? What is the monetary cost of how much my family and I get? I believe that C. Everett Koop summarizes this point excellently. “If there is a right to health care, someone has to provide it. That means higher premiums and higher taxes or both. And as popular support grows, there is a popular aversion to facing the hard questions" such as who, how much and how to control the costs. Health-care reform is a never-ending problem. Each solution becomes a problem” (Koop, 2002).

            As of right now, I believe that I am a firm proponent of a single payer healthcare system. While my ideas and thoughts are strong in this system currently, that does not mean that I am not open to changing my mind and researching more. I know that I have an exorbitant amount of research to still compile in order for me to be fully convinced of my position. Through a single payer system one entity, a government run organization, would collect all healthcare fees, and pay out all healthcare costs. In other words, all hospitals, doctors, and other healthcare providers would bill one entity for their services. Administrative waste would be drastically reduced which means that care and insurance can be provided to those who currently don’t have it. Coverage would include all medically necessary services, including rehabilitative, long term and home care, mental healthcare, prescription drugs, and medical supplies and preventive and public health measures. This follows my proposed argument, which states that a “minimum” or “necessary” level of care will be provided for all, which would greatly benefit society as a whole. Care would be based primarily upon need, not on the capacity to pay. Hospitals would receive an annual lump sum payment from the government to cover operating costs. Doctors would receive payment from fee-for-service, salaried positions in hospitals, and salaried positions with group practices. According to a 2004 study produced by the New England Journal of Medicine they determined that a national single payer healthcare system would reduce costs by more than 400 billion a year despite the expansion of comprehensive health care to all Americans. While there are many pros and cons to this approach, perhaps many more cons than pros according to some individuals, it is still a system that has been applied and utilized. Multiple European nations use it.

            I hold fast to my assertion that universal healthcare is a right insomuch as that it provides a “minimum” or “necessary” amount of care to an individual. I will not get into the specifics here for the reality of aforementioned points in previous paragraphs. Any universal healthcare service that exceeds the “minimum” level of care becomes a privilege. This topic will continually to be debated for years to come no matter what. For every strength there is a weakness. To exist in a world where there is only black and white is impossible. Finding a common ground by combining multiple viewpoints while being open to suggestion leads to progress.