Universal Health Care Is a Right

In times past fire protection was available only to those who could afford to pay for it. Insurance companies organized private fire brigades that would only fight fires at building the companies insured. If your home was uninsured it was allowed to burn. "Socialized" firefighting began in France in 1733, this is the first instance where government firefighters put out fires free of charge. Fire, like disease, is a risk to the whole community, not just an individual. It is the responsibility of society as a whole, through government, to fight fires.

Here, my friends at Socrates' Academy make their case against Universal Health Care. Simply stated, they make the classic conservative argument that the only rights are those things the government is not allowed to take away. This is a fun game I learn while reading William F. Buckley in my youth. I can play it with police protection, education, sewage treatment, road construction, even zoning laws.

The Case Against a Right of Universal Fire Protection

• Rights are things you already have, not things provided to you by government.
• You are free to own a hose.
• Private fire brigades are available to anyone willing to pay for them.
• While the government cannot take away your life, liberty, or property without due process it is not the government's responsibility to protect these things for you. (For example, the government is not responsible for sewing up holes in your breeches to keep coins from falling out.)
• You do not have the right to the free use of someone else's labor.
• Ergo, the government has no responsibility to provide fire protection; it is the individual's responsibility to provide his own. Reductio ad Absurdum
  

The fatal flaw of the conservative logic is that government is a separate entity from society, from The People. But, government is nothing other than the people acting as a community. Fire, crime, transportation, pollution, and disease are all community concerns as they affect everyone within the community.

Universal health care is not a right, it is a responsibility. Disease does not always inquire into ones social status before invading a body. The social contract that doctors had with the public defined by the Hippocratic Oath is breaking down in this era of Corporatized Medicine. As a result, diseases that require a reservoir of untreated souls, such as tuberculosis, are making a comeback. My health improves when everyone else is healthy.

Universal health care is a responsibility that society has towards itself for the well-being of all. It is no different than police protection or education. Government, as the instrument of society, is the tool society uses to serve itself.