Universal Health Care blog #1

Comparative Health 490:

Prompt #1: Is universal health care a right or a privilege? 

            Universal health care is a system that provides all persons in a region with health care benefits. No matter what occupation one has, you receive the same health care as everyone else. With universal health care, even if you have studied and spent thousands of dollars on education, you still acquire the same benefits as someone that does not work at all. So this brings us to the question, is ones health care a right or a privilege? Should health care be given to all persons no matter what level of occupational status an individual is on? Over the last few years, with Obama Care rising, this has been a large dispute in America. Many persons disagree with the idea of Obama Care, a universal health care system that equalizes all people when it comes to the health care system. As a twenty year old college student with a prolonged belief that I must work for what I receive, I must side with health care being a privilege.

            Last week in Abbi Ohman’s blog for 350 she mentioned a quote by Erma Bombeck that has been one of my favorites to live by: “When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, 'I used everything you gave me.” I think this is a good way to live one’s own life, and it is just another way to remind me that I must use the life and talent I have been given in order to receive what I want and need to survive and prosper. In a perfect world, everyone would be equal in every sense of the word. This is not a perfect world, and it has never been. Health care is not a right to any person that is born with the ability to work for what they want and desire. Leonard Peikoff, who won over my side when I read his opinion in our Health Care book, speaks about the Declaration of Independence and what rights when have been given. We have the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Leonard quotes, “they are rights to action, not rewards from other people. You have a right to act, and to keep the results of your actions.” In the movie The Pursuit of Happiness starring Will Smith, he is a father that has little money and a son that he is committed to. He must care for himself and his family, so he fights the odds and works for what his family needs. He works his way all the way from the bottom to a successful stockbroker. It wasn’t easy and there were many bumps in the road, but in the end he worked for what him and his family needed and deserved. At the end of the movie he wonders how Thomas Jefferson knew to put ‘pursuit’ in front of happiness in the Declaration. As a personal opinion, I believe that we have the god given right to pursue and commit to the actions that God has given us. So again, health care is a privilege to those who are born with the ability to work for what they need and want.

            While thinking about this question for the last week, the only key point that was leaning me towards the side of health care being a right was the thought of those people that are born without the ability to work for a higher occupational level, such as the mentally ill. In my eyes, health care is a right to these individuals. I believe heath care should be given to these people due to the lack of ability that they were born with. This separation between the people I believe should work for their heath care and those who it should be given to leaves a large gap of people that have trouble pushing themselves to work for needs, or even people that have became addicted to drugs or alcohol and need treatment. All in all I’ve always wanted to help people, and I would give up a lot of what I have to help others. I think that this gap of people should be helped as best as they can by charities. No, they do not have the right to deserve free heath care due to their choices, but they do deserve the right for others to help them at people’s choice to give.

            Before I really started learning about universal health care and taking the time to think about what opinion I would reside to, I would have taken one look at all this information and said that those who believe health care is a privilege are selfish and inconsiderate. Who wouldn’t want those in need to receive proper heath care? After doing research, listening to my classmates give their opinions, and really finding in myself what I believe in morally, I resided with the opinion that human beings must work for what we receive. Pablo Picasso said it best, “Action is the foundational key to all success.”