Dan

Calabrese

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July 16, 2009

Health Care, and Why Rights Are Not Conferred by Government

Let’s talk about rights, and from whence they derive.

House Democrats are now pushing a bill they say would make health care a right for all Americans – and not only a right, but a responsibility as well.

Huh?

This is why rights should not – and in fact, do not – come from the Congress of the United States. The honorables don’t even appear to know what rights are, much less understand who confers them.

First of all, something cannot be both a right and a responsibility. A responsibility is the counterweight to a right. If you have a right to be secure in your home, you have a resulting responsibility to protect that right. If you have a right to free speech, you have a responsibility to exercise it in a way that respects the same right when exercised by others.

But the responsibility and the right are not the same thing. A right is something to which you are simply entitled, no matter what. Free speech is an inalienable right, even for a convicted felon. That doesn’t mean you are also entitled to any and all means of exercising that right. You can’t demand that the government supply you with a printing press or web site traffic. You need to figure that stuff out for yourself. But once you come up with a channel by which to communicate your message, the message can be anything you want it to be.

That’s your right.

You do not, however, have a responsibility to exercise free speech. Indeed, if free speech is a right, you must also have the option of saying nothing – otherwise your exercise of speech wouldn’t really be free at all.

If health care were really a right, it would mean you are entitled to receive as much of it as you want, in whatever form you want, without restrictions. If granted, it would be the first right of its kind in America. That’s because the other rights spelled out in the Bill of Rights grant you the freedom to do something. You can speak freely. You can worship freely. You can assemble peacefully. You can pursue happiness. If health care is a right, it would be the first right that permits you to demand something of another, which would consequently compel the other party to comply. That may be characterized as an entitlement, but that’s different from a right.

As to health care as a responsibility, the Democrats’ bill follows the disastrous path of Massachusetts in requiring you to buy health insurance – either from a private insurer or from the government itself. You have no choice. You will be fined if you don’t. So they call health care a right, but the exercising of one’s rights is the exercise of freedom. If you are required by law to do it, that’s the antithesis of freedom. It’s not a right.

But this is what happens when Congress gets the idea that rights are conferred by the government. The founders, in spelling out the Bill of Rights, believed that rights come from God, which is what makes them inalienable. The rights spelled out in the first 10 amendments to the Constitution were not things the government would give you, nor were they things the government would force you to do. They were a listing of things the government was forbidden from prohibiting or taking away from you. They were areas into which government could not tread.

Once the government makes health care a “right,” and forces you to avail yourself of this right, it can make anything both a right and a responsibility at the same time, even though that makes about as much sense as ordering you to buy and sell the same stock at the same time.

If we cut to the chase, it’s obvious enough that the Democrats’ health care bill has nothing to do with rights or responsibilities, just as cap-and-trade has nothing to do with the environment. Both are simply excuses to seize control of massive portions of the private sector. Language that references rights, responsibilities, climate emergencies and whatever other nonsense they spew is merely an attempt to make their power-grab seem benevolent and/or necessary.

Your right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness includes your “right to health care.” All you need to do is earn the means by which to purchase health care services, then go and do so. That is your right, and no one can tell you that you can’t. When government makes a law requiring that it be provided to you, then dictates the method by which you must obtain it, you have not seen your “rights” expanded – not matter what words they use to hide their own power grab at your expense.

© 2009 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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