Rights

There has been a debate recently in the blogsphere about Universal Health Care. Now, normally besides all the ideological bullshit you get a bunch of numbers proving this or that. However, there was an interesting twist in this debate. It got sidetracked into the concept of rights and whether Health Care is a right.

Well, as anybody who knows my thoughts on the subject, I think single payer would be a great idea but doubt it would happen anytime soon. My argument is almost always made based on economic grounds. But what about rights? Is it one? I think the short answer is yes.

McQ's issue seems to be that his right is being infringed because they are taking his money. Now, he comes from a fundamentally different perspective on the subject than me.

My view of government is that it is a system where there is a sacrifice of individual benefit for a common benefit. Or at the very least a disregard towards personal benefit. Capitalism is an example of this tradeoff. We don't care about each individual outcome as much as we care about the aggregate outcome. We, as a society, accept the possibility of impoverishment in exchange for greater growth overall and better potential for everyone. Now, we do use some of our wealth to mute some of the effect on the bottom but the fact is we do not take away Bill Gate's fortune to equalize everybody.

In this context, I view "Rights" as merely benefits of the system that pass a cost-benefit analysis (Yes, I know how cold and mathematical) . Does the proposed right cause a net positive or a net negative?

Now, some rights are considered innate. In my analysis, I would argue that these rights have such a large net positive benefit that without them, we remove ourselves from the sphere of civilization and humanity. In that sense, they are innate to being human.

But those rights are few and far between. What is innate about a right to own a gun? I would argue that it is not innate at all. It is a right that we as a society think is positive. But if society changed in such a way that it became a net negative, the right would be curtailed or eliminated entirely. This is what we see happening in urban areas. Urban areas are fundamentally different from rural areas and, as a result, limitations have been placed on gun ownership.

In the same context, I would argue that a single payer system is a right because it represents a net positive benefit to society. A large part of this is based on economic grounds. Namely, our system is inefficient because of its structure. I won't rehash the arguments made elsewhere at great length. Needless to say, anybody arguing that our system saves us money has a large hill to climb. But further, I would argue that a single payer system has additional benefits in terms of alleviating the uncertainity of the bad health lotto. People are more productive when there is less chaos around.

I think that is enough for now. I am sure I will elaborate more later.