My long opposition to socialized health care was until quite recently based purely on a practical notion that although the idea was meritorious in intention, there is no way to implement an effective plan that will sustain the quality of health care we presently enjoy in this great nation. My cousin sent me a recent article which opened my eyes to a concept previously unimaginable to a "compassionate conservative" such as myself: Socialized Health Care is immoral. Leonard Peikoff, Health Insurance is not a "Right" http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=26465 (2007).
Particularly fascinating, to me anyway, was the concept that by demanding a right to health care, we are stripping the rights of the health care workers to their pursuit of happiness. With "rights" come government regulation far beyond that necessary to protect patients from negligent care. Doctors will have to make choices about the level of care based upon the costs associated and pressure from administration to keep those to a minimum, the liability if they do not treat the patient with the expensive, but better alternatives, the requirements of a peer review board, and pressure to only accept healthy patients to keep costs low and a good "performance record."
A desire to help others is no doubt one of the greatest intentions that the human mind can possess. It is, however, extremely immoral and irresponsible of us to demand that others give up their own rights to help. The liberals are now attempting to legislate morality, something they have bemoaned conservatives for attempting for years. (Same sex marriages anyone?)
The right to life is a right in the sense that no one may take an affirmative act to deprive you of that right without due process. Likewise the pursuit of happiness guarantees you the right to the pursuit, not the happiness itself. It places no burden on anyone else save that they do not interfere with those rights. Socialized medicine places the burden of care on everyone for everyone else. It will hog-tie doctors and limit access to health care until problems that could have been nipped in the bud have flowered, spread, and worsened.
Jeff C.
