7/20/09 Ron Paul: Healthcare is a Good, Not a Right

http://www.house.gov/paul
http://CampaignForLiberty.com

Political philosopher Richard Weaver famously and correctly stated that ideas have consequences. Take for example ideas about rights versus goods. Natural law states that people have rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. A good is something you work for and earn. It might be a need, like food, but more goods seem to be becoming rights in our culture, and this has troubling consequences. It might seem harmless enough to decide that people have a right to things like education, employment, housing or healthcare. But if we look a little further into the consequences, we can see that the workings of the community and economy are thrown wildly off balance when people accept those ideas.

First of all, other people must pay for things like healthcare. Those people have bills to pay and families to support, just as you do. If there is a right to healthcare, you must force the providers of those goods, or others, to serve you.

Obviously, if healthcare providers were suddenly considered outright slaves to healthcare consumers, our medical schools would quickly empty. As the government continues to convince us that healthcare is a right instead of a good, it also very generously agrees to step in as middle man. Politicians can be very good at making it sound as if healthcare will be free for everybody. Nothing could be further from the truth. The administration doesnt want you to think too much about how hospitals will be funded, or how you will somehow get something for nothing in the healthcare arena. We are asked to just trust the politicians. Somehow it will all work out.

Universal Healthcare never quite works out the way the people are led to believe before implementing it. Citizens in countries with nationalized healthcare never would have accepted this system had they known upfront about the rationing of care and the long lines.

As bureaucrats take over medicine, costs go up and quality goes down because doctors spend more and more of their time on paperwork and less time helping patients. As costs skyrocket, as they always do when inefficient bureaucrats take the reins, government will need to confiscate more and more money from an already foundering economy to somehow pay the bills. As we have seen many times, the more money and power that government has, the more power it will abuse. The frightening aspect of all this is that cutting costs, which they will inevitably do, could very well mean denying vital services. And since participation will be mandatory, no legal alternatives will be available.

The government will be paying the bills, forcing doctors and hospitals to dance more and more to the governments tune. Having to subject our health to this bureaucratic insanity and mismanagement is possibly the biggest danger we face. The great irony is that in turning the good of healthcare into a right, your life and liberty are put in jeopardy.

Instead of further removing healthcare from the market, we should return to a true free market in healthcare, one that empowers individuals, not bureaucrats, with control of healthcare dollars. My bill HR 1495 the Comprehensive Healthcare Reform Act provides tax credits and medical savings accounts designed to do just that.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• congressman
• ron
• paul
• texas
• straight
• talk
• healthcare
• health
• care
• good
• not
• right
• obamacare
• hr
• 1495
• hr1495

[SomeUsefulIdiot]

Under a true free market system, the insurance companies wouldn't be regulated nearly as much as they are now, which is the reason why insurance costs are so high. Under capitalism, costs go down while quality goes up. Plus, if you want to be "Moral" about it, the determining factor to who gets coverage would be how much money you have, which is an indicator of how productive you've been. Stealing from people to provide health insurance to others is about as immoral as you can get.

[mecher3k]

1:50

Stop fucking speaking for people with UHC ffs.

Everyone I know that is in those countries with UHC would never get rid of it. To even suggest it in most of those countries in political suicide, if not actual suicide.

[lozman67]

I've totally lost any respect for Ron Paul now.. his arguments are 'ad infinitum'.. take an argument and run it to extremes.. like children do..in socialised health systems costs do NOT rise above yours because..1) doctors do NOT spend all their time in paperwork.. they don't have paperwork, as there's no bills to pay... 2) There is no insurance company creaming off profits in the middle (U.S. insurance companies spend more on lobbying and advertising than on cancer treatment).

[bittysnack]

@rbh1138 so your saying that people should be able to prevent getting cancer or being hit by a drunk driver in the first place? mhm yeah ...in crazy world that TOTALLY makes sense. and i assure you that emergency care is NOT free. i had to be rushed to the hospital for a heart attack and let's just say the bill sent to me a few weeks later was not pretty. I don't know who's ass your pulling these statements out of, but you need to do some ACTUAL research on our system

[rbh1138]

@bittysnack Most health care costs is do to something people could avoid if THEY took care of themselves. Healthcare is a "product." Right now you can go to any hospital and get FREE care if it is an emergency. Illegals and many other people, do that all the time. So the argument about taking care of people that need it is false and a scare tactic people use for lack of actually understanding what they're talking about. Ron Paul will fix the mess we're in.

[ashwadhwani]

WOLFOWITZ DEBATE QUESTION UGH

RON NEVER SAID LEAVE HIM TO DIE, THESE WORDS WERE INTRODUCED UNNECESSARILY BY THIS PIECE OF SHIT WOLF WHO ASKED THE QUESTION IN THIS WAY

IT IS NOT EVEN DIGNIFIED TO ASK SUCH A QUESTION !!!

ONE SHOULD ASK RON PAUL WHAT WOULD HE SUGGEST AS A SOLUTION

YOU THINK RON WILL SAY "LET HIM DIE??

IS THAT WHAT YOU PRESSTITUTE MEDIA R UPTO AGAIN??

ALSO THIS GUY WILL SAVE ON TAXES IF RON WINS SO HE CAN PUT HALF OF THAT IN HEALTHCARE, OR SOMEONE LOVES HIM TO CARE OF HIM

[bittysnack]

the government we have now thinks that healthcare is "a good" and not a right. that's the problem. we have so many people in this country suffering from disease and injury while almost the entire world has embraced universal healthcare. we can not help that we become sick ...so why should we be made to believe that we must earn the right to receive help? ron paul is just going to drive this country into the ground further.

[Dread556]

@SomeUsefulIdiot and its also such a relief that im not instantly criticized for my statement lol.

[SomeUsefulIdiot]

@berbatovinho77

Monopolies can only exist with government aid in the form of licensing, patents, subsidies, and regulations that prevent new business because of too high of starting costs. Try to argue with your mind and not emotion, you sound scared and irrational

[SomeUsefulIdiot]

@Dread556

It's such a relief to have another commenter that is educated and doesn't argue with brash assumptions backed by nothing. Thanks for joining the fight!

[SomeUsefulIdiot]

@berbatovinho77

I would argue that chasing profits and helping people are one in the same. Especially if we lived in a free society

[SomeUsefulIdiot]

@berbatovinho77

No, it's not a right. You don't have a "right" to the services of anyone else. The issue of who is doing the providing is purposely evaded by today's "intellectuals". And I'm convinced from the short exchange I've had with you that you'll never understand what true laissez-faire is. For the last time, healthcare companies have not been truly free from government interference, which is what creates distortions in the market for health care.