Apparently healthcare is a right. Obama said so himself.
I consider myself corrected.
For the irony-impaired, yes, that is tongue-in-cheek. The question was framed terribly by Brokaw -- Right, Privilege, or Responsiblity? I'm not sure what that even means, and the options are not mutually exclusive. I'd have been happier with a more nuanced answer, but as an advocate of the moral obligation of universal health, I'll take it.
07 October 2008
So I was wrong
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4 comments:
Well, McCain took Responsibility, so he had to over the top.
If that debate had been a week ago, I would have yelled "YESSS!!!" when Obama said it's a right.
But I read your "it's not a right" post, with which I very much agreed, and thus yelled "NOOO!!!"
Am I teachable or a flip-flopper? I'll take shaved gorilla.
If I am in a restaurant and see someone choking, I believe that I have a moral responsibility to assist them, but they do not have a right to my (or anyone else's) assistance.
Even if someone were adamant that such a "right" existed, I would hope that they would understand that extenuating circumstances would perhaps limit the "rights" of the sick or injured. So these "rights" are at best relative rather than absolute. How many months in the ICU does a brain dead or terminally ill patient have a "right" to receive from society? We may feel a responsibility to help a person trapped in a burning building, but not at the expense of other lives
If the provision of medical treatment is too expensive, dangerous, or futile, then the supposed right to care becomes not even a responsibility.
So where do we draw the line?
Well, if the Messiah said so then it must be true. Now you just gotta believe that he can multiply the loaves and fishes.
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