Healthcare: Right, Responsibility or Privilege? October 9 2008
One of the best questions asked at Tuesday’s debate was one of Brokaw’s off the cuff questions:Do you think health care is a right, a responsibility or a privilege?
I held my breath for McCain’s answer, which ultimately satisfied me: Health care is a responsibility.
Constitutional scholar Barack Obama said it was a right.
M.D.O.D. is a terrific blog written by a staff of eight doctors with a “ reputation amongst our twenty or so regular readers for being hard right smart assess and we confess, it’s true.”
This week, M.D.O.D. is hosting “Grand Rounds”, which is a series of links from other medical blogs.
This thought provoking passage about the reputation of doctors, their image of being greedy and the entitlement culture is from the Happy Hospitalist:
What we have in this country are entire populations of highly successful highly educated and wealthy individuals who put in their 60 hours a week. Who lead. Who manage. Who educated themselves to increase their financial worth in this capitalistic society. Folks who rarely have a business relationship with the poor and uneducated folks of this society, or daily contact in some way or another. In our capitalistic society, business relationships are built around money. If you have the money, you get the service or product.
They way I see it, doctors are in a league of their own. Unique in all regards. You have no other profession of highly education individuals who work with the poor and uneducated as their normal course of business. Doctors, who carry the longest educational journey, also have the least wealthy as their normal clients.
I believe, to a large degree, that this association by default with the poor and uninsured, has everything to do with the view of doctors as pompous, arrogant, greedy and overpaid. In no other profession is contact of this nature a part of the normal business climate. It is also why I believe that the entitlement mentality runs rampant. That a doctor’s service is viewed as a right to take without compensation. It’s a battle of class warfare. Two classes of individuals from entirely different economic poles that would otherwise rarely see each other (except perhaps at church).
Also linked by way of Colorado Health Health Insurance Insider is a solid argument from Duncan Cross:
I have argued previously that health care is not a primary right, but a civil right. I want now to engage the argument against health care as a right in more depth, specifically to say that it can only be symptomatic of acute hypocrisy.
The argument, in its typical presentation, is that doctors provide a service, the provision of which they should have exclusive control over; making health care a right denies them that control, therefore health care cannot be a right. Bear in mind that this argument was originally formulated by a
The argument, in its typical presentation, is that doctors provide a service, the provision of which they should have exclusive control over; making health care a right denies them that control, therefore health care cannot be a right. Bear in mind that this argument was originally formulated by a non-physician, and is not endorsed by all physicians. That said, the physicians who do endorse this notion are at least being disingenuous – including such docblogs as Kevin, MD and GruntDoc.
Read the whole thing Here.
Finally, I think it should be mentioned that the health care issue is only being addressed superficially by both campaigns. There has been no acknowledgement of the impact of malpractice suits and the astronomical cost of malpractice insurance on the medical industry, therefore no discussion of tort reform, which is understandable since it may tweek the trial lawyers’s lobby and then where would our hapless candidates be?
Furthermore, there has not been enough attention paid to exactly WHO thses millions of uninsured are. I was recently at a Main Line Chamber of Commerce breakfast attended by some local congressmen: Andy Dinniman, Ted Erickson and Dominic Pileggi. They all addressed the health care issue and they all agreed that these “millions of uninsured” are mostly young people between the ages of 23 and 30 who, upon graduating from college are no longer eligible to remain on their parents’ plans and don’t want to shell out the money for their own, so they take their chances. One of the proposed solutions to this by the PA State Legislature was allowing parents to cover their “children” until age 30. Feh. Could work, I guess. My company actually pays for the employee’s healthcare (it’s family members who are additional). If you want to opt out of getting your health insurance at my company, you must provide proof that you are insured elsewhere.
The other uninsured, it seems, are illegals or people living “off the grid” (read: drug addicts) who use emergency rooms as their primary care. This needs to stop, as those of us who do have insurance make up the shortfall in our premiums. The doctors at M.D.O.D specialize in arguments against this and makes a far more powerful case against this practice than I ever could. Give them a visit. You may be surprised at what you learn.
Possibly Related...
Comments, compliments or complaints?