Universal Health Care blog #2

Universal Health Care Blog #2:

Prompt: Argue for your opposing side of universal health care.

            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 the profession of a doctor, you still receive the same health benefits as someone who 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? As a person with a strong moral belief that we are all equals in this selfish world we have found ourselves in today, I must side with the statement that health care is a human right. Every person deserves the right to their health and well being. As Helen Redmond says in the Universal Health Care book, the core to the idea of health care being a human right is freedom. Having a non-universal health care system influences every decision that one makes all the way down to very simple and basic decisions, costing an individual their freedom. The Declaration of Independence says that we have the right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. Doesn’t the right to life correspond with the right to health? Good health gives us life, and it is a right for every human being to receive this good health.

            Not having universal health care splits us as human beings into different groups depending on our social status. It creates a line between the strong and the weak, leaving the weak and less fortunate without health care. In our Universal Health Care book Leonard Peikoff, who is against universal health care, quotes, “our rights are rights to action, not rewards from other people. The American rights impose no obligations on other people.” I find it hard to believe that people can live in a world without respect for other people and their well being. Our whole lives are based around the care for others. Take the Declarations rights for example, the rights that Peikoff says have no obligations on other people: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Life: given to us by Jesus Christ our savior, and the parents that have raised us. Liberty: given to us by the men that fight for our country. Pursuit of Happiness: No one can truly be happy on their own; we must count on others in order to survive. The American rights impose a HUGE obligation on other people.

            Yes, some might disagree that it is unfair to give individuals that don’t have a job or no occupation the same heath care as a brain surgeon, but what about those that don’t choose the cards they have been given? What about those with cancer bills, born with a disability that makes them unable to work, gets in an accident that was never planned, or even the homeless on the streets that have lost everything due to medical bills? Do they deserve this? No. Anyone with any type of moral sympathy has to agree with this statement… we must make health care universal for those that that have received the unchosen, unfair life. Major cities are full of homeless people, and being here in Rome proves this statement to the fullest. Most of them probably qualify for Medicaid, but do not have the ability to apply because they do not have all the evidence to prove that they are homeless, because why? They are homeless. Gathering this information for the less fortunate is almost impossible. Helmond Redmond quotes, “The consequence is hundreds of thousands of mentally ill are eligible for coverage but can’t get it. Instead, they wander the streets talking to themselves, hearing voices, dirty, hungry, and begging for money. The mentally ill are not free, such as our Declaration says we all have been given the right to be. Those who are in need deserve the right to be treated, because no one chooses this life, we were given it without choice. Yes, one should work for what they want in life, but the baseline should be health care; if you want more than that, go work for it.

            With my morals towards my religion, I believe that universal health care is a right that is deserved by everyone due to this life we have been given by Him. Every person deserves to have the opportunity to live this life to the fullest, and this begins with universal health care. Saint Peter traveled all over Rome spreading the message of equality and the love that we must have for other people. In the First Letter of Peter he says “be holy in all that you do, since it is the Holy One that has called you, and the scripture says: Be holy for I am holy.” We have been given the chance by Him to be holy in all that we do. Not only in some of what we do, but ALL of what we do. Everyone deserves the right to health care, and a chance to live a prospering life. “The trouble is everyone talks about reforming others and no one talks about reforming himself.” –Anonymous