Thoughts on Health Care, Part I: A Right to Health Care Access?

Over the next few months I wish to weigh in on the health care debate with a series of short essays. Here is the first:

One of the most relied upon arguments of proponents of socialized medicine is that health care access is an inherent right all human beings possess. I wish to challenge this assertion.

There are numerous practical arguments one can make against this claim. For instance, who will pay for the costs? How will perverse cost incentives be dealt with? How will the distribution of effective services be done efficiently? How will information be shared? The list goes on and on. But I wish to deal with one distinct issue: the fundamental contradictory nature of a so-called "right" to health care access.

Claiming health care is a right is to give credence to the notion of positive rights; rights which are based on action, or require one party to give and another party to receive. Examples are access to health care, as mentioned, or access to public education. Contrast this with negative rights, which are based on inaction, or the freedom "from" something. Popular examples are the rights of freedom of speech and assembly (freedom from coercive measures). Negative rights are a one party system; positive rights are a two-party system. To clarify, take crime as an example. A negative right application of crime in society would be "freedom from crime." If this right were to be violated, society would take ex post measures to compensate the victim for any damages suffered. A positive right application of crime would be the "right" to be served by a public police force, security cameras, etc... to prevent such violations from occuring in the first place.

The key difference between these two types of rights is that positive rights comes at a cost to some party to maintain the right of another party, whereas negative rights do not come at a cost to any second party. I am free to say what I wish, but no one is required to listen. I am free to assemble with others, but I cannot coerce others to assemble with me. On the other hand, if I have a right to health care access, I do not have to endure any cost to attain the benefits of the services of health care. But because health care is a limited resource, to receive it, it must come at some cost to another party. In this simple scenario, that party would be the provider. The cost would be endured in forms of lack of monetary compensation due to time spent, skill applied, effort applied, emotional capacity spent and others.

At its core, a right to health care access is a violation of property rights. The consequence of this would be the extreme perversion of The Law. Frederic Bastiat writes in The Law, "As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose - that it may violate property instead of protecting it - then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or use it for plunder." A right to health care access legitimizes the idea that The Law exists not to protect, but to provide. The consequences of such thinking can only lead to totalitarian ends.

As Michael Cannon and Michael Tanner write in Healthy Competition, "Fundamentally, creating a legal "right" to health care is incompatible with the idea of individual rights. People cannot legitimately claim a right to something if that claim infringes on the rights of another." A right to health care is a seductive idea that thrives in the minds of reality-deluded utopian thinkers. All it will provide is a subtle avenue for government to seize individuals' liberties under the guise of paternal altruism.

Do not be fooled.