John Singleton with Bob Howard, Rip Van Australia (Stanmore: Cassell Australia, 1977), pp. 119-21, under the heading “Health”.
Contrary to popular belief, we do not have a right to good health, or to adequate health care. There is no difference in principle between claiming such a right and claiming the right to have a good car, a swimming pool and a trip around the world every Christmas. The only difference is emotional prejudice. Among the few rights that we really do have, is the right of freedom. Furthermore, this is a right possessed at birth by all people, and provided we do not violate the rights of others and thus become a criminal, it is a right we should retain throughout our lives.
One implication of the right to freedom, is the right to voluntary trade and that right includes tow truck drivers and another group called doctors.
A doctor has a skill that he or she trades on the market place just like barbers, plumbers, engineers, carpenters and scientists. They all have a right to trade freely for whatever they can get, or for less if they want. To say that one person has a right to medical care is to imply that another must provide it. Since medical care can only be provided by other people, there is no logical alternative. But, if a doctor must provide that care, then he or she is literally a slave, and can no longer be said to enjoy a right to freedom or to trade. There is no logical way out of this dilemma while it is maintained that people have a right to adequate health care.
The issue is not a matter of semantics, or simple nit-picking, for if we abandon our principles, and in particular, our rights, then by what criterion do we make future judgements? If someone kidnaps our children and makes slaves out of them, on what grounds do we protest? (Particularly, what happens if they are put to work on humanitarian projects, such as building hospitals?) The problem with the issue of health care is that emotions get in the way and cloud rational thinking.
There is no reason why people should not get together in voluntary organisation and make whatever arrangements they can agree upon for the provision of health care, but there is every moral (and practical) reason in the world why doctors should not be legislated into slavery to provide it. One person’s need is not a claim on other person’s life.
It cannot be said if a government is elected by popular vote on the platform of providing a comprehensive health scheme that it has a “mandate” to do so. The most that could be said is that it has a right to organise one for those who specifically voted for it, and only at their expense. A government should be designed to protect the rights of all citizens, and not violate the rights of one group to satisfy the demands of another. Rights are not allocated by popular vote, nor can they be morally violated by it.
In the current debate over the issue of health care, the medical profession is not entirely blameless. After all, they do enjoy the government granted privilege of a licence to practice, are members of a government-backed cartel and have allowed the facilities of most hospitals to pass into the hands of various governments without protest or competition. The number of people who qualify as doctors are strictly controlled by restrictions on the setting up of, and entry to, medical schools which we all pay for through our taxation. And professions such as chiropractic, naturopathy and herbalism have had great difficulty in getting established, and what success they have had has been largely in spite of activities of the “free enterprise” medical profession.
Still, doctors are only human; they even die just like the rest of us. Whatever makes us think we have a special right over their special skills? Or them over us?
Sarah
December 20, 2011 @ 10:21 am
I am not a slave. To suggest it is not only offensive to an entire body of professionals, but deeply insulting to the many people down the ages who have been subject to the barbaric institution of slavery. I am paid for my labours. I can choose which hospitals/trusts/regions I wish to apply to. I have some measure of control over local policy and tactical decisions. Should I so choose, I could work privately. I could emigrate, taking my transferable skills to a country of my choice. I have rights to not be insulted or abused by patients, colleagues, or management. I have protection in case of illness. I can afford a decent standard of living. I am not starved, chained, beaten, abused, deprived of my liberty, or indeed even forced to work. I do my job because I love it, and of course because I need to earn a living.
People do not have a right to good health. Because you cannot have a right to something that is beyond the ability of mankind, with all its technology, to provide. But a right to health care, provided when needed (note: needed, not wanted) free at the point of the delivery? Well, as a "slave" of the NHS, I will happily fight for that right. I happen to think it is a very important one. Of course, there are people who believe in that principle even more strongly than I do: they are those who have previously worked in systems where the parents of desperately sick children can be rendered bankrupt by their medical bills, or even in those where without money up front there is no care at all. They can teach us all about the true value of a national health service. I would not want to live in a society that felt otherwise.