Citizens have a right to whatever health care they may need, within certain limits. A few new, experimental or extremely costly drugs may not be covered, and an eighty year old smoker is unlikely to get a double lung transplant, but for almost all necessary medical procedures the answer is yes.
I suppose that does imply a duty of care assumed and undertaken by the taxpayers, but if there's an inherent understanding of that framework, I for one am not aware of it. I'd guess it's more of a moral consideration than a right given the above limits, but I think most of us think of it as merely a practical way of paying for and administrating health care.
There are probably a few medical ethicists who deal with these questions, but I wouldn't know where to direct you. I think most of us are content to know we do the best we can for the most everyone, and if it's your bad luck to come down with some rare and extremely costly disease, that's just the way the cookie crumbles.
There was an article in Harpers a few years ago by an American doctor saying something along the lines of that on average 90% of a person's lifetime healthcare expenses will be incurred in the last year of life, all the machines and tubes and so on, and that U.S. healthcare will only cost more year over year as new and ever more advanced technologies are developed to keep ever more frail elderly patients alive.
i-node seems to think that if you can afford it that's great, they'll keep your brain alive in a jar if they can, but most of us up here agree with Laura Nyro about going naturally.
Back at the question of negative vs. positive rights, how is it that your Constitution allows the government to tell you to go die in Vietnam, but can't tell you to pay some taxes that they'll use to provide health care for everyone? |
