It's time to ask the right question about healthcare

Lost in all the political bickering over universal healthcare the past 20 years — from Hillarycare to Romneycare to Obamacare — is the most basic question of all concerning healthcare. Why isn’t it a right?

We’re told over and over again that healthcare is not a right. And we’ve simply come to buy into the notion that it’s not. The principle argument that healthcare isn’t a right is because it’s not in the Constitution. Those who would argue that are, of course, correct. But do our rights end where the text of the Constitution leaves off?

The Constitution was drafted as a blueprint for the operation of government. It didn’t really deal with rights. But Americans were hesitant to approve a new government that didn’t give them certain rights. So 12 amendments to the Constitution were drawn up. Ten of them were ratified and became our Bill of Rights, allowing for free speech, arms, privacy, due process, etc. Since then there have been 17 additional amendments, some dealing with rights and others dealing with the inner workings of the federal government.

But if you understand the basic beliefs of the American foundation, you’ll agree with me that the Constitution doesn’t grant rights. You can’t be granted a right. Rights are a social or ethical freedom or entitlement. They cannot be granted by man or government. Nor should they be restricted by the same.

So we have the right to say what we want. We have the right to protect ourselves. We have the right to privacy. Why don’t we have the right to be healthy? Or to be made healthy?

The Libertarian view of this — to which I typically subscribe — is that the rights granted in the Constitution don’t cost anything of others. Your free speech doesn’t cost anyone else anything. But demanding that someone else set your broken leg and put it in a cast costs someone else time and money.

The problem with that theory is that the 16th Amendment doesn’t grant a right at all. Instead it allows for the collection of income tax, setting the precedent that you can be charged a fee for living in America. So in order to maintain your rights, you might have to pay a price.

Back to the question, then: Why isn’t healthcare a right? At this point, it comes down to ethics and power.

The ethical thing to do is to take care of our fellow man. If someone has a broken leg and you have it in your power to fix it, an ethical person fixes it. The problem is that ethics and power are not good partners. And this country isn’t run by ethical people. It’s run by powerful people.

So when someone makes the argument to you that healthcare isn’t a right, what they’re really saying is that their money is more important than your health, your well-being. Now if that’s some guy in a bar, so be it. But if it’s someone creating laws, remember that when you go to the voting booth. Because if they’re willing to look you in the eye and brazenly tell you that their money is more important than your well-being, what might they do when they think you’re not watching or listening?

Scott Leffler is a thinker. Sometimes his thoughts differ from yours. It's OK, you have the right to be wrong. Follow Scott on Twitter @scottleffler.

Romney on health care: Let them eat cake

I don’t want to confuse anyone into thinking that I’m a Barack Obama, fan, but the more Mitt Romney talks, the more I like Obama’s chances of being reelected.

As for me, I’ll vote third party — again. I’m leaning towards Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, but I haven’t committed to anyone yet. I just know it won’t be Mitt or Barack.

Over the weekend, Romney said on 60 Minutes that poor people who are sick can just go to the ER to get fixed up.

“Well, we do provide care for people who don’t have insurance,” Romney said on the show, which aired Sunday night. “If someone has a heart attack, they don’t sit in their apartment and — and die. We pick them up in an ambulance, and take them to the hospital, and give them care. And different states have different ways of providing for that care.”

Never mind the fact that ER care is the most expensive form of medical treatment there is. And never mind that just two years ago Romney said that keeping people out of the ER should be a priority because “It doesn’t make a lot of sense for us to have millions and millions of people who have no health insurance and yet who can go to the emergency room and get entirely free care for which they have no responsibility.” Also ignore the fact that emergency room care doesn’t come without responsibility — those debts stay with people for years if they’re not paid off.

What bothers me most about Romney’s comments is that ER treatment is not health care. It’s death prevention. The jobs of nurses and doctors in emergency rooms across the country isn’t necessarily to make you well. It’s to make you well enough to get you back out on the street.

So Romney’s suggestion that the poor simply use emergency rooms as their primary care physician is both fiscally irresponsible and morally objectionable. It keeps people in a vicious health care cycle of being “not dead yet.”

Personally, I think this view is telling. I mean, I can’t help but think that it’s actually how he feels. Just like he feels that “the 47 percent” are a bunch of moochers whose discount bin clothes are ruining the view for the well-to-do.

Never before have I seen a presidential candidate who was so cold and calculating as Mitt Romney. And yet, he maintains followers, in my opinion, simply by not being Barack Obama. Just as the Republican primary lasted so long because all of the other GOP candidates were not Mitt Romney.

Maybe that’s why a Washington Post/Pew Research poll released Monday states that just over half the nation — 54 percent — say they are very or fairly satisfied with their choices come November.
I can’t say that I blame them. I continue to check out the discount bin of political candidates — third parties — looking for someone I can live with.

Scott Leffler wishes he had better options for presidential candidates and other things in life. But at least he has Twitter. @scottleffler

America - Still not a Democracy

It got monotonous, boring and frankly quite annoying.

Yes, I could be talking about almost any Bills' season since my birth, but I'm actually referring to the two-plus hour debate over the Health Care Reform bill Sunday night.

Democrat after Democrat was yielded 45 seconds at a time to say that insurance companies are bad and Americans deserve health care. And Republican after Republican was yielded 45 seconds at a time to say that government is bad and “the majority of Americans” oppose government run or mandated health care.

Fact of the matter is, I agree with both sides of the great debate.

Insurance companies are horrible. It's the only industry where you pay a certain amount of money to have access to something … and then more if you actually use it. If they even let you use it. I am among the vast majority of Americans who have had a basic insurance claim turned down simply because the insurance didn't feel like paying it.

Americans do deserve health care. The rest of the civilized world has figured out how to make health care universally available to everyone. If we truly have the right to “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness,” one could easily imply that we have the right to be healthy.

The Republicans are correct, however, about government. It's a monstrosity. It could screw up a one-float parade. And all the red tape could easily make that parade cost millions of dollars. I don't trust government to do much. Of course, if you're familiar with me at all, I'm not telling you anything you don't know.

And yes, the polls seemed to indicate that the majority of Americans had serious reservations about the concept of universal health care or “Obamacare” as the rightwing seems to like to call it.

In truth, I haven't read the health care bill. Of course, I'd bet the majority of congress hasn't actually read it either. And I don't know whether it's good or bad. I'm not here to preach the values and pitfalls of universal health care.

No, my main frustration today is with the Republican talking point about “the majority of Americans” opposing it.

I've said this before and I'll say it again: We are not a democracy. Never have been. Never will. Congress has enacted thousands upon thousands of pieces of legislation that the majority of Americans opposed. And the reason for them voting lockstep in opposition to our will is almost always the same: It's for our own good.

Frankly, if the majority of Americans knew what was good for them, we wouldn't keep sending the same yahoos to Washington year after year. We wouldn't need those yahoos to create laws mandating seat belt use … or speed limits … or drug laws … or any number of laws that have been enacted for the purposes of protecting us.

And if the majority of Americans actually cared enough, we wouldn't need those yahoos at all. We would just all vote on everything. That, of course, would make us a democracy. Not a republic.

I found it quite ironic listening to members of the Republican party (the world “republic” is right in their name) speak nearly unanimously about what the American people wanted, essentially extolling the virtues of democracy.

I won't go into why democracy is a bad thing. I did that in length in my December 8th column. And I'd prefer not to be monotonous. Or boring. Or quite annoying. For fear that someone will make me run for congress.

What we deserve?

In a democracy, the people get the government they deserve.”

It was either Alexis de Tocqueville or Hunter S. Thompson who penned the preceding phrase, depending on which source you believe. Also could have been William Shakespeare or Thomas Jefferson.

It matters not who said it, I believe the principal to be true.

Note that the quote says “the people” and not just “people.” It's a collective statement. If you're the only person with any brains living on an island of idiots, you might not necessarily get the government you deserve. But your society as a whole, does.

I can't help but wonder how many of you felt I was talking about them specifically in the last paragraph. I won't ask for a show of hands, though. There was apparently plenty of hand raising last week. But that's neither here nor there.

It could be said that in this quasi-capitalist society in which we live, the people get the customer service they deserve. After all, what is capitalism but democracy with dollar bills?

Could it be said that the people get the health care they deserve? Really? Could we be so screwed up as a whole that we deserve the broken mess we have?

Cause let's face it, the health care system is broken from the top down. Or might it be from the bottom up. Really, who is to blame? The system? Or the system?

Yes, I realize I said system twice. The first system was the insurance carriers and the health care providers. The second system referred to us, the users.

Surely there is enough blame to go around. Yes, the insurance industry reeks of greed. I know of no other industry where you pay for something … and then have to pay extra if you actually use it. Anyone who's been to a hospital lately can attest to the fact that something is amiss there. You've got doctors and nurses answering to lawyers and bean-counters as if that somehow makes sense to anyone … other than the lawyers and bean-counters. It is, however, the “us” part of the equation that concerns me most. For I am not an insurance executive, nor a doctor, nor a bean counter. I am – for better or worse – part of the collective, “the people.”

So in steps government to fix things. The democratically elected government. The one we deserve.

God help us all.

Truly, one of the few things on the planet that I detest more than lawyers is politicians. Maybe it's because such a large percentage of them are actually just reformed lawyers.

I tend to believe less government is best, and as such abhor government involvement in most aspects of my life. I can only imagine what Thomas Jefferson would have thought of his government running the health care industry. I've been to President Jefferson's grave. I
imagine if I revisited it, I could hear him rolling over in it.

After all, it was definitely Jefferson who said, “A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government.”

I tend to agree with the Democrats that the health care system is broken. I just don't tend to agree with their idea on how to fix it.

But mine is a lonely voice, drown out by the collective, getting the government – and the health care – that “the people” deserve.