Is Healthcare a ‘Right’?

OnlineComm / August 21, 2009

Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) likes to refer to healthcare as “a fundamental right and not just a privilege.” But what exactly does he mean? Is there really a ‘right’ to healthcare?

Debate over the purported ‘right to healthcare’ has quieted recently. Or rather, with concrete proposals under consideration, ‘rights questions’ have been drowned out by other concerns—things like cost, taxes, the deficit, a “public option,” end-of-life decisions, and so on. But the rights debate is well worth having because the stakes are so high. If Ted Kennedy is correct—if every American has a fundamental right to government-provided healthcare—then we are constitutionally obligated to provide universal health insurance. All the discussion of costs and deficits is beside the point.

The problem is that Sen. Kennedy is wrong; there is no fundamental right to healthcare. When the founders wrote of our “inalienable rights” to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” they were referring to natural rights, things that we can enjoy on our own, without depending on government. They exist by nature—they are not entitlements to things produced by others. The rights to life and liberty are individual rights that I can pursue or neglect as I wish. Governments are instituted merely to secure these rights by providing the necessary infrastructure for their flourishing—this involves instituting a rule of law and order, providing for the public defense, and so on. (more…)