On Health Care and Chicken Kiev

A British doctor asks in today's WSJ, "Is There a ‘Right’ to Health Care?" Although he is somewhat mistaken, or at least imprecise in the formulation of his answer, he covers some of the key essentials:
While I think adding the concept of "duty" and assigning it to the government muddies the central thrust of the argument, he correctly identifies that the only way government can live up to this "duty" is by "constant coercion." The problem I have with this particular line of reasoning is that by focusing on duty, he ignores who is being coerced, namely medical professionals primarily, as well as the individual customers, but in light of the rest of his article this is a minor criticism.

Theordore Dalrymple (a pen name) goes on to make some very good points, such as attacking the notion that health care is somehow a special class of good that is an essential precondition for human survival, by comparing it to food and shelter, saying, "everyone agrees that hunger is a bad thing (as is overeating), but few suppose there is a right to a healthy, balanced diet..."

Ultimately, his argument suffers because he does not define the nature of individual rights and why the assertion of a "positive" right to a good provided by someone else is a fundamental violation of individual rights. Still, his examples of the British system are instructional and foreboding considering the path America is on, and he also gets in some great pithy comments.




There is no right to health care—any more than there is a right to chicken Kiev every second Thursday of the month. [bold added]

Again, not a perfect argument overall, but very good, and the simple statement that "there is no right to health care" is one that needs to be shouted from the rooftops. Now, we just need someone who knows Dalrymple to send him a copy of Leonard Peikoff's "Health Care is Not a Right." Imagine how much stronger this already good article would be if he could fully defend a free market in health care, and the individual rights upon which such a market depends.

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