I was thinking about xjx388's weird attitude that not giving Nicky Blunden the experimental drug that wasn't passed as safe and effective was major-league evil, but he's prepared to overlook all the far worse outrages that happen in America.
He repeatedly asserted that
if we think healthcare is a right, then we're evil if we don't spend every penny possible on everybody's healthcare, no matter how pointless or how untested the drug. I think it's back to this strange right-wing concept of "rights" that we've debated before. Rights not being whatever your society has legislated that you have a right to, but something innate.
Remember the arguments we had with Jerome, who was using much the same language, including the stuff about "you don't have a right to take the fruits of my labour". He asserted, vociferously, that rights were innate and unalienable, but when pressed about what they were could only say "life, liberty, pursuit". Trying to explain that none of these things is either innate or unalienable, even by using the example of slaves, was an uphill struggle.
This seems to be a common misconception among Americans. They argure whether acccess to healthcare
is or
isn't a right, as if this is a question with some sort of moral absolute answer, like "is murder wrong?". The actual situation, which is that (like all other rights) it's a right if you live in a society which has legislated to make it a right, and not if you don't, seems hard for them to grasp.
They seem particularly scared to answer "yes" to the question, because they then conclude that if access to healthcare
is a right, then there is absolutely no limit on anything citizens might then have to be provided with. I remember one poster, a while ago, saying that of course it would be impossible to make healthcare a right, because then everybody would demand to see only the best surgeon, even if he was thousands of miles away, and the state would have to pay for people to be flown thousands of miles to see the consultant of their choice. Because it was their
right! Trying to explain that this wasn't so, and that it was perfectly easy to structure a universal healthcare system to provide only what was reasonable or deliverable, was a struggle. Because limiting access in any way would then be violating someone's "rights".
It's completely batcrap insane.
That seems to be the basis of xjx388's criticism of the NHS though. No matter how comprehensive the coverage, there's always a boundry somewhere, and if you've decided people have a right to healthcare, you have violated their rights!! The USA, of course, doesn't confer any right to healthcare on anyone, so it's perfectly peachy if even basic care is denied. No rights have been violated.
That's why I tried to explain the actual situation. In Britain, we have decided to set up a universal healthcare system, with defined benefits which are pretty comprehensive, and give every legal resident the right
to access that system when they need it. You can try to make the case that coverage should be even more comprehensive than it is, but so long as people are given the care that is covered by the NHS, nobody's rights have been violated.
The question the Americans should be asking isn't "
is access to healthcare a right" in some fundamental philosophical sense, but "
should US citizens be given the right to access affordable healthcare?" Put that way, it is a question that can be debated sensibly. It can then be debated further as to what level of healthcare US society wishes to grant people as a right, because obviously it is up to that society to decide just how far it wants to go.
Should citizens of the world's only superpower and self-described greatest country on the planet have the right to access to affordable healthcare? I'd say it's a no-brainer.
How comprehensive should that access be? Given that everywhere else can afford transplants and chemotherapy and quadruple bypasses for their citizens, I'd say they'd have a hard time setting the bar lower.
Is it possible, with present resources? Obviously yes, since the current healthcare system is gobbling up twice the amount of money that most universal healthcare systems consume.
Would it be economically advantageous to do it? Again, obviously yes, since pissing away about 8% of GDP on a healthcare system that isn't delivering anything extra for the money is beginning to cause the USA appreciable economic harm.
Is it possible within the socioeconomic structure of the USA? Given the political lobbying power of those who have been made immensely rich by trousering most of that excess 8% of GDP, I'd say the USA is
ed.
Sorry, chaps.
Rolfe.
