The biggest problem with defining healthcare as a 'right' is that healthcare is far too amorphous a term. As has been pointed out, prefacing 'healthcare' with 'basic' does nothing to make matters clearer, and probably makes the task of definition harder, not easier.
Making access to healthcare a right essentially removes the debate about government provision of healthcare from the political sphere (where it surely rightly belongs) and moves it, disastrously, to the legal sphere. In the case of the all-too general statement 'healthcare should be a right', every denial of health care becomes a legal matter: if it's a right, notions such as cost-effectiveness, or even sheer effectiveness of a course of treatment, are trumped by the 'right to healthcare'. In the case of the seemingly more specific 'basic healthcare' the legal wrangling ensues over defining 'basic'.
In either case, democratically elected legislatures no longer get to decide (or no longer get to decide with an acceptable level of freedom) how to maintain a public health service - as noted, it becomes more a legal than political wrangling.
I am not a state minimalist, but I can accept it as an entirely defensible political position to hold. Talk of making political decisions about how governments tax and spend on social programmes such as healthcare in to rights strikes me as anti-democratic, insofar as the attempt is being made to exclude a defensible political position from future decision-making. If you want your government to tax more and spend more on healthcare, vote for the party offering that (and accept that a future democratically elected government may row back) - but don't try to 'lock out' the parties that oppose such increases in the future by 'locking in' what is surely a policy decision in the language of rights.
Originally posted by KunsooHow simple. Let's just fix current medical charges at, say, 50% of what they currently are. Then the government can pay for free health care for everyone.
Well, I have no problem with price controls either. Health care workers and professionals do just fine in the social democracies.
Yes, we will end up paying for the lower income. But we do anyway in our premiums as we are subsidizing emergency care treatment often the result of a lack of regular care. So while we are subsidizing the lower income, with ...[text shortened]... cts a huge drop in the deficit from the decline of, among other things, emergency room spending.
I don't see why we aren't using this procedure for automobiles!?! It's like magic!
But why stop there? If 50% of currents costs is good, 40% is better! Why should We The People have to pay for something We Think Should Be Free?!?
Originally posted by DrKFThat's something like what I was trying to say but he talks gooder.
The biggest problem with defining healthcare as a 'right' is that healthcare is far too amorphous a term. As has been pointed out, prefacing 'healthcare' with 'basic' does nothing to make matters clearer, and probably makes the task of definition harder, not easier.
Making access to healthcare a right essentially removes the debate about government pr ...[text shortened]... by 'locking in' what is surely a policy decision in the language of rights.
Originally posted by DrKFObviously in a scenario where the legislature passes "basic healthcare" into law, to be enjoyed by the population as a right, I'd assume the piece of legislation in question would elaborate on these universal provisions to a degree where the term would no longer be amorphous.
The biggest problem with defining healthcare as a 'right' is that healthcare is far too amorphous a term. As has been pointed out, prefacing 'healthcare' with 'basic' does nothing to make matters clearer, and probably makes the task of definition harder, not easier.
Making access to healthcare a right essentially removes the debate about government pr ...[text shortened]... by 'locking in' what is surely a policy decision in the language of rights.
Having decided on what would constitute "basic healthcare", I don't see what would be terribly wrong about removing these provisions from the political arena, I'd say that would actually be desirable if what we're trying to accomplish is to secure the population that no frenzy of laissez-faire capitalists in power or knee-jerk reaction by anybody with the hands on the levers of government would deprive them of at least decent access to healthcare.
Originally posted by generalissimoThe problem is a 'winner-takes-all' issue. Whichever party drafts the legislation gets to set the legal minimum. But if the opposing party disagrees whether that is the correct minimum to constitute 'basic healthcare', they have to play on a field wholly and legally determined by their opponents, even if they regain power. And if they do not believe there should be a minimum, they are, presumably, powerless to reverse the decision entirely.
Obviously in a scenario where the legislature passes "basic healthcare" into law, to be enjoyed by the population as a right, I'd assume the piece of legislation in question would elaborate on these universal provisions to a degree where the term would no longer be amorphous.
Having decided on what would constitute "basic healthcare", I don't see wh ...[text shortened]... on the levers of government would deprive them of at least decent access to healthcare.
(If, in fact, the opposing party can alter the minimum, or even take it away - if it remains wholly in the political sphere - it's arguably not much of a right at all - just a word you use to describe a policy because it sounds grand...)
Originally posted by DrKFSurely this is nothing that can't be overcome with the spirit of bipartisanship.
The problem is a 'winner-takes-all' issue. Whichever party drafts the legislation gets to set the legal minimum. But if the opposing party disagrees whether that is the correct minimum to constitute 'basic healthcare', they have to play on a field wholly and legally determined by their opponents, even if they regain power. And if they do not believe there [i]sh ch of a right at all - just a word you use to describe a policy because it sounds grand...)
I understand that in the American context there will be division, there will be bickering, there will be the threat of filibuster, among other tactics of delay and frustration of the party proposing reform, but I wouldn't say that ensuring both parties have a finger in this pie is an impossible task. Of course, the active participation of republicans in the drafting of the legislation would mean that the bill would be emasculated to some degree, but Im sure that a certain number of minimal provisions could be agreed upon by everyone in the end.
Originally posted by generalissimo[/i]The spirit of what in where?
Surely this is nothing that can't be overcome with the spirit of bipartisanship.
I understand that in the American context there will be division, there will be bickering, there will be the threat of filibuster, among other tactics of delay and frustration of the party proposing reform, but I wouldn't say that ensuring both parties have a finger in ...[text shortened]... sure that a certain number of minimal provisions could be agreed upon by everyone in the end.
Have you not been paying attention? 😉