Michael Wolfe

There are those who insist healthcare is a right. Is it? What is a right? The proper definition from Webster’s 1828 is this:

5. Just claim; legal title; ownership; the legal power of exclusive possession and enjoyment. In hereditary monarchies, a right to the throne vests in the heir on the decease of the king. A deed vests the right of possession in the purchaser of land. Right and possession are very different things. We often have occasion to demand and sue for rights not in possession.

According to the Declaration of independence, there were 3 rights recognized as descending to us from God: The rights to: Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Thus, every man has the right to life and liberty, and to pursue that which will bring them happiness. It is very important to note that the founders did not recognize a right to happiness, but a right to the ability to pursue happiness.

For example, it might make one happy to possess the house of their neighbor, but they do not have the right to take their neighbor’s house for their own. However, they do have the right to offer of their own possessions (typically money) to their neighbor in order to purchase the house from them. Likewise, the neighbor has the right to refuse any such offer.

It is on this premise that a free market operates: men and groups of men (companies) compete for things that bring some form of material happiness through trading, purchasing, leasing, borrowing, etc. Such a system preserves the right to seek happiness both of the people providing goods or services and those seeking those goods or services.

However, there are those who seek to make specific goods and services a right. Federal mandates forced banks and financial institutions to loan money to people who had no business buying the houses they were seeking. Why? Because, in a properly operating free market, they could not afford the loans, and had no title or claim to the money the government mandated they be given.

Healthcare is comprised of goods and services provided by people. I have no right to demand that another person sacrifice life or limb or wealth to meet my needs. Likewise, when a government deems goods and services “rights” they are in fact mandating that “happiness” is itself a right. The inherent contradiction is this: the person who gains “free” or reduced goods and services may be happy, but the one being forced to give them up suffers loss. It is comparable to the previous example of a man coveting his neighbor’s house. Is it right that the government step in and force the neighbor to give up his house, regardless of the price offered? Further, not only does the government has no right to force the neighbor to give up his house, it has no right to spend money trusted to them by the taxpayers to do such a thing.

A government mandate that healthcare is a right, sets a dangerous precedent. What if the government then decrees that a job is a right? As surely as healthcare being a right would give the government (unconstitutional) authority to control the medical system, declaring that a job is a right would then give government unprecedented control of what was once a free market.

Indeed, the “Consumer Credit Protection Act of 2009 would grant the president unconstitutional powers to bailout any company he deems worthy, setting the state for dramatic government control. Also troubling are bills which would use tax payer money to pay or augment the wages of private sector workers!

Health care as a right deprives professionals of the right to exchange their services on a free market. It also subverts those who, out of their own personal desire and adherence to Christ’s teachings, would freely offer the fruits of their labor to those in need. Charity is not the duty of the government or the state, but the right of the people to engage in as they pursue happiness.

Progressives can demonize the profit (the right of people to exchange goods and services in a manner that both deem reasonable) motive as much as they want, but the truth is that the promise of profit is what drives many to innovate. People work tirelessly and researchers innovate and capitalists invest capital in hopes of getting a return that exceeds their expenses. Government bureaucrats can call profits “obscene” or “excessive” all day long, however if there was no profit, there would be no jobs, no innovation. If there had been no profit, there would have been no model T. If there had been no profit, we wouldn’t have computers, any number of products. Medicines, advanced medical technologies, and so on.

People who go into the medical field, have the right to seek whatever compensation they deem fit for their services, subject to the willingness of the public to pay for them. Not everybody is seeking profit as the primary motive, and are ready and willing to sacrifice profits for the ability to help those who cannot help themselves. When you force someone to give of their goods or abilities against their will, it is theft. Governments are not exempt from the 10 commandments, as they are headed by men and women. Theft, lying, coveting, lust, fornication and every manner of immorality runs amok in the highest levels of the states and countries. They must never be allowed to be “above the law” as far as offenses against the laws of the land go. Justice must be blind, and it must be granted for peasant and king alike.

The federal government’s role in the whole process is to ensure that the market remains free, patents are issued for the protection of inventions, and to provide redress for grievances which are referred from state and local courts.

Published first on thejeffersondemocrat.com