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Comment by pessimizer | Hacker News Reader

> I would argue that healthcare is not a right.

I would argue that rights are things that we declare by agreement as a group, not physical objects or measurable qualities. Of course healthcare is not currently a right; we haven't made it one. The question is: "Should healthcare be a right?"

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Now here would be good forum post. But is pretty philosophical. What is the source of rights. If we agree that rights come from the state then we can't really complain when other countries do horrific things to their citizens. We also can't complain if our elected leaders decide that free speech, privacy, or any other pet social issue is removed. I think that we had it mostly right at the founding of this country.

Too much could be written about this argument but to me a right can't be provided by someone else's labor.

Now that I think about it, a right is also something that can't be taken away. No one should be able to prevent your free speech (1st Amendment), defend yourself (2nd Amendment), or violate your privacy (4th Amendment) without due process.

In this case no one is preventing someone from being able to care for themselves. We are just arguing over who pays for it. It is probably a bad example but everyone has the right to use the roads for transportation. We just don't have the right to the car, insurance, and gas.

Edit: Added more comments

What you're getting at is the difference between Negative Rights and Positive Rights. Negative Rights guarantee inaction, e.g. the government can't suppress your speech or take away your ability to defend yourself. Positive Rights guarantee action, e.g. the government will force someone to provide you healthcare.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights

You're also touching on the difference between Natural and Legal Rights.

Rights are expectations that you have from a just society. There's no real division into positive and negative rights. Due process, for instance, could be phrased either way but it is the same right nonetheless. One phrasing would emphasize freedom from extralegal persecution, the other would emphasize that all sorts of people (e.g. lawyers, juries, judges) are compelled to provide you certain services.

You can't have rights without guaranteeing action. My right not to be tortured requires all sorts of individual and societal interventions in order to fulfill. There's no classification of rights into positive/negative and certainly no difference in validity between the two.

I could not have said it better myself. I actually thought of that a little while after I wrote that.

Healthcare isn't a right. But as a wealthy society we have a moral obligation to provide essential healthcare to everyone at a price they can afford.

Now I am not wealthy by any stretch of the imagination but I do not have a moral obligation to force anyone rich or poor to provide essential healthcare. I could morally encourage people to donate time and money to hospitals as a charity but to force them as part of a government mandate to me is morally wrong.

If you think that taxing the wealthy to provide essential services to the poor is immoral then you've totally lost me. That's not the type of society I want to live in. Relying on voluntary donations leaves too many people to fall through the cracks.

The problem with using words like wealthy are that it is a moving target. Generally when someone says wealthy they mean anyone making more money than them. In a small town in south east U.S. 150k would make someone very well off. One might even say wealthy. In San Francisco someone making that amount of money might be homeless. So should the person living in California pay more?

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