Is healthcare a right or a privilege II

Seems more ethical than claiming a right to other people's things.

 

More hypocritical, surely?

 

You sure like to levy that charge.

It's not my fault that you can't understand how legal and contractual obligations can exist outside of a natural right.

 

I say what I see: enjoying a right whilst pretending it doesn't exist is either hypocrisy or self-delusion. And legal decisions and documents can confer rights eg: Magna Carta, US Constitution etc

 

I think we are talking past each other. It would be helpful if you gave your definition of a "right".

I will start.
In the United States a right is a legal entitlement guaranteed by the Constitution. The most famous rights are found in the Bill of Rights, or the first 10 amendments to the Constitution. Just because something is legal does not mean it is a right, as laws can be repealed or changed.

 

What the Constitution Does Not Do
The Constitution does not give you rights. The founders considered your rights to be "God-given" or "natural rights" — you are born with all your rights. The constitution does, however, protect your rights by:

• Limiting the powers of government by granting to it only those specific powers that are listed in the Constitution; (This has not proven to be effective of late.)
• Enumerating certain, specific rights which you retain. These are listed in the Bill of Rights.

Purpose of the Constitution

Not my Constitution.

 

Ok you both seem to be arguing from Natural Law concepts which stem as much from the Enlightenment and classical Greece as they do from the Bible and Christian thought and therefore are not sufficient in framing a specifically Christian answer to the issue at hand

 

....but if you want to appeal to Natural Law, then you only have to go as far as John Locke to have health mentioned as a right.

This article is particularly pertinent to our discussion: http://www.marketsandmorality.com/index.php/mandm/article/viewFile/924/838

 

Correct.

Healthcare is a service provided by others, who , for the most part, pay for their own education, office space and other tools of the trade. Just like attorneys and veteranarians,They are entitled to paid for their services by the people who use them.

 

That author takes quite a leap from just this one statememt:

"Every one, as he is bound to preserve himself, and not to quit his station willfully, so by the like reason, when his own preservation comes not in competition, ought he, as much as he can, to preserve the rest of mankind, and may not, unless it be to do justice on an offender, take away, or impair the life, or what tends to the preservation of the life, the liberty, health, limb, or goods of another."

I don't see how one can say Locke believed in a natural right to healthcare from the above.

 

And comparing the Magna Carta to the Constitution, barons demanding rights from their sovereign king is a far cry from men outlining rights that exist apart from government in a document designed to limit their own government.

 

Wait you want to me to answer your begging the questions fallacy?

 

It's the socialist mindset. They have a "right" to everything...as long as someone else pays the bill.

 

And what if the people needing treatment can't afford to pay for them directly?

 

Except that Locke expressly included the right to health in his definition of 'natural rights'. He goes on to say that we must not "take away or impair...that which tends to the preservation of life ".

It's pretty explicit; I don't see how you can talk your way out of this one...

 

I want you to explain how you square the circle of claiming to be "pro-life" * and yet at the same time be anti- the principle of universal access to healthcare.

*If you won't answer it then the obvious qualifier is "offer expires at birth"

 

Is healthcare a right or a privilege II

Society has made Healthcare in the U.S., to a limited extent, a right. People in the Profession are required to treat visitors to Emergency Rooms. Beyond that, like it or no, it becomes a privilege.

Carpro's post number 109 is spot on. People have a right to be paid for their labor and expertise.

 

No-one here, certainly not me, is denying the right for heslthcarenprofessionals to be paid a fair wage for their labour

 

He wrote that if they have the means/objects to provide for their health, we can't take them away from someone.

Where did he say we must provide someone the means/objects needed to maintain health?

 

A good letter on the topic by a physician:

"Recently, a colleague told me he feels that health care is a “right.” This was not a novel idea: for the past several years, I have heard many learned people repeat the same phrase. That the phrase came from a fellow physician, however, struck me as particularly interesting. I wondered how my colleague could take such a naïve view of rights, given how they are articulated in the founding documents of the United States."

Health Care as a “Right” | The Journal of the American Osteopathic Association