Stephen Spruiell on Zach Wamp’s Rebuttal of the Right to Health Care

Spruiell takes up for the GOP congressman and potential nominee for governor of TN over at the Corner.

I’m not sure what else Zach Wamp said to incur the wrath of the blue-blog zombies, but he is absolutely right about one thing: Health care is not a right, at least not according to the conception of rights upon which this country was founded. Your rights include life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. You may not be unjustly deprived of these things. Your rights do not include things that I or anyone else must be forced to provide for you, such as a home, a car, a job, or health care.

It might or might not make sense for the government to help people obtain these things, but that’s not the same thing as saying that we all have a right to them. It only takes a moment’s thought to see why this is so. What is meant by people who say we all have a right to health care? Do they mean that we all have a right to any sort of treatment that modern medicine can provide, regardless of cost or necessity? Or do they mean that we all have a right to some basic level of care? If it’s the latter, who decides where we will draw the line?

Take a heavy drinker who develops cirrhosis. He desperately needs a liver transplant in order to survive. But there is a shortage of available livers, and there are many other patients in need. Does he have a right to receive a life-saving transplant, or has he given up his right? Let’s say he has, and we deny him a transplant, but there are still not enough livers to save the deserving patients. How do we decide among them without arbitrarily depriving some of their right to health care?

This is the problem we face when we shift from a negative to a positive conception of rights. We encounter shortages, we face tradeoffs, and at some point we have to make arbitrary decisions. When that happens — well, to quote William Munny, “Deserve’s got nothing to do with it.”

For some time now, the debate over how best to allocate scarce resources has been a settled matter. The market, with its system of price signals, is the most efficient way to direct resources to where they are most urgently needed. We need health-care reform that enables the market for health care to function more efficiently. Removing the distortion in the tax code that favors employer-based health insurance would be a good start.

The last thing we need is public policy based around the idea that health care is a “right” to which we are all entitled. We’ve seen the results when other countries have adopted such policies: shortages, rationed care, higher taxes and a less innovative health-care sector — in short, a state of affairs that infringes on everyone’s right to pursue the best care he or she can obtain.

Note to Spruiell: Wamp’s been known to goad the Dems publicly on the House floor with taunts such as “we outfoxed ya!” Gotta love my congressman!

UPDATE: My congressman… in person.

UPDATE 2: For those of you not familiar with him, Wamp was one of the congressmen elected in 1994 who stood up with Steve Largeant and Tom Coburn against the cave ins to the democrats by the house leadership, (notably Newt and DeLay).

5 Responses to “Stephen Spruiell on Zach Wamp’s Rebuttal of the Right to Health Care”

1. Aron Goldman Says:
   March 5th, 2009 at 9:55 pm

   Life prolonging cancer drugs to be banned because they cost too much
   http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1159506/Life-prolonging-cancer-drugs-banned-cost-much.html

2. Matthew E. Miller Says:
   March 5th, 2009 at 10:01 pm

   Spot-on. Positive rights are generally impossible to support, especially using the sort of arguments that liberals use. Communitarian’s have a different sort of argument for positive rights, and that’s a slightly different story.

3. Tommy Oliver Says:
   March 5th, 2009 at 10:04 pm

   Whenever we see Wamp getting interviewed on national tv, we are tempted to chug a beer and flash the Ronnie James Dio horns. The man is priceless. “Gobs of nekkid immigrants!”

4. SteveP Says:
   March 5th, 2009 at 10:24 pm

   Of course nationalized health care is a bad idea – but fighting against it on grounds such as the size of government (an abstract concept to many) and saying that people don’t inherently have a right to medical care (true, but not a strong argument) is probably counter productive.

   Instead, we should be fighting against it on one, very simple argument: it doesn’t work. Coverage is not equal to care. We could give the same health insurance to every American that we provide to the President, and we would likely see only a minimal rise in the overall health of the American public – if we were to see any improvement at all.

   We already have waiting lists a mile long, overburdened doctors, and hospitals that can hardly cope with the number of patients – and thats only going to get worse as the baby boomers (many of whom actually DO have decent health coverage) get older.

   Nationalized healthcare is only going to make those things worse.

5. Aron Goldman Says:
   March 6th, 2009 at 12:02 am

   Rasmussen Reports: 34% Agree You Can’t Earn Living in U.S. Without Government Help

   Please let me know if you agree or disagree…

   “The moral mission of government is simple: no one can earn a living in America or live an American life without protection and empowerment by the government.”

   34% Agree
   46% Disagree
   20% Not sure

   George Lakoff, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley, recently stated that “the moral mission of government is simple: no one can earn a living in America or live an American life without protection and empowerment by the government.”

   Thirty-four percent (34%) of voters nationwide agree with Lakoff’s assertion while 46% disagree in a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Twenty percent (20%) are not sure.

   Half (51%) of Democrats agree with the professor while Republicans and unaffiliated voters strongly disagree. Republicans reject Lakoff’s statement by a 3-to-1 margin, unaffiliateds by a 2-to-1 margin.

   Americans under 30 are more supportive than their elders. Women are fairly evenly divided while men are less enthusiastic.

   Fifty percent (50%) of liberals agree with Lakoff while 60% of conservatives disagree. Government workers are evenly divided while those who work in the private sector are more likely to disagree with Lakoff.