Many lawmakers currently involved in the health care reform debate in Washington are operating under the premise that health care is a basic right of a U.S. citizen.
A long-time friend and a follower of this blog recently posed the question: Is health care a right?
It’s worth pursuing because it’s vitally important that we as a nation come to some conclusion on this as a basic premise in order to finally determine what kind of health care system we ultimately adopt.
Health care is not guaranteed specifically in the U.S. Constitution. But health care has been granted legislatively to those people eligible for Medicare and Medicaid. So that raises the “equal protection” argument that the rest of the population should at least have the same opportunities as those receiving Medicare and Medicaid.
The equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the constitution has been cited in many Supreme Court decisions over the years to ensure to civil rights protection and to mandate public education opportunities to citizens.
However, we don’t think that argument holds up in the health care debate.
The point is worth repeating, we need to determine where health care lies in the legal landscape. Only after we have defined it legally can we have a foundation from which to build a philosophy regarding health care as a right or not.
Furthermore, there is a lot of talk about reforming the U.S. health care “system.” In fact, there really isn’t a system to reform. What we have is a patchwork of ever-changing arrangements between patients, providers, insurers and the government that work well for most, not well for others and not at all for a few.
We need to be talking about building a system, rather than reforming one that doesn’t really exist. Only when we can develop a sound philosophy as to where health care ranks legally based on our constitution, will we be able to determine who should receive care and by whom.