Missing the point

Democrats just don’t get it.

Neither do Republicans, for that matter.

That’s right. As if the record deficits, half-hearted military efforts and endless scandals of recent decades weren’t proof enough, our political leaders have decided to prove they can’t focus on what matters when it comes to health care either.

The concept conspicuously absent from both parties’ discussions of this issue – both recently and in years past – has been individual rights.

Contrary to the revisionist history of our country’s founding to which too many young people have been exposed, this concept was once considered not only relevant but also worthy of discussion by political figures. See The Federalist for more proof than you’ll care to read.

And in 1789 when they said “rights,” they meant rights.

That is, they meant “the power or privilege to which one is justly entitled” or “something that one may properly claim as due,” as Merriam-Webster defines the term.

Unfortunately, neither side does much more than occasionally pay lip service to the concept.

Instead of having the courage to consider and address individual rights, elected officials have focused on how well their respective plans will achieve certain politically popular goals.

While several of these goals are certainly desirable, there is a problem with almost every proposed method of achieving them, namely that the solutions would necessarily curtail someone’s rights in pursuit of someone else’s benefit.

For example, the president’s plan would violate insurers’ right to conduct their businesses as they see fit by banning denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions, capping out-of-pocket expenses and requiring coverage of routine check-ups.

Additionally, the proposal supported by Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., would violate consumers’ right not to purchase insurance if they don’t want to.

Most disappointingly, almost all participants in this debate don’t even mention the rights of providers, without whom health care would not be possible.

Every major proposal is careful to detail how taxpayers, consumers, seniors, small businesses and other groups would (allegedly) benefit from reform, but they all rest on a heinous assumption: that doctors and nurses have a responsibility to provide care to all comers, regardless of whether or not they can expect to be paid for their services.
In other words, they do implicitly address the idea of rights, but only by perverting the meaning of the term.

They imply that anyone who seeks medical treatment is “justly entitled” to receive care, without regard to whether the person asked to provide it is willing to do so.
Thus, by asserting one person’s “right” to the time and effort of another, these proposals deny the second person’s own rights.

So, when can we expect to hear this aspect of the issue addressed?

With apologies to the few serious members of Congress, I must admit I’m not holding my breath.