But somehow I get the sense that you do not want universal right to health care even if it were affordable.
I don't think you can properly have a right to health care.
You can have a government program that pays for or even directly provides health care for every citizen or every resident. But that isn't the same thing as having a real right to universal health care.
I don't believe in "positive rights". You have a right to free speech, that amounts to a right to not have someone force you to shut up. You generally have a right not to be murdered, not a right to live. (Murder is a violation of your rights, clumsily slipping off the side of a cliff is not). In a very general sense its a violation of your rights to abuse you unjustly. Its not a violation of your rights not to provide assistance to you, not to pay for what you need, or not to transfer resources to you. You don't have a right to take from others or to have a third party take from others on your behalf.
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Note on terms. Rights can mean natural rights, legal rights, constitutional rights (which is just a special form of legal rights), contractual rights, and perhaps other things.
Any time I just use "rights" and the context doesn't clearly indicate anything else read it as "natural rights".
In the case of "a right to medical care", not only is there no such natural right, but in a general sense there is no right of any kind in the US currently, but of course if the law or constitution changes there could be a legal and/or constitutional right, and if you pay for health insurance you have contractual rights in terms of payment for health care. |
