A right to health care?

[E. Blackadder]

Help me out, master. What is a "right?" and what is "health care?"

If we should have a right to health care now, should Socrates have had a right to health care, and if not, why not?

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[reply to OY:]Time zones. Time zones. I was wrapping up a long-ish evening. Not on the computer.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: E. Blackadder on 2001-10-04 09:59 ]</font>

[Oh Yeah]

Tell me you did not post that at 1am.

[Anonymous]

Ah, Grasshopper, these questions trouble you?

What is it that one may have, but not give, nor be taken away? Yet the sage reminds us to "Know the male, but to keep to the role of the female."

So it is with health care: the right may not be taken away, yet it is to be received and not asserted.

For the sage also tells us: "For the man of the way, there is no place for death to enter." We are responsible for our own health.

For the benefit of Cricket-Master Lao: Generally, no one is allowed to die in this "beautiful country" for lack of health care. However, the assertive (or male) nature of health care is like the vessel that, poured out, still does not empty. Yet, the pouring out comes at a cost. "There is gold and jade to fill a hall, yet none can keep them safe."

In this case, the doctors, hospitals, and drug companies will empty the hall, no matter how large.

[Laocoön]

EB, you exhibit no contradiction, so the point is moot. My concern is with people's obligations to each other. If we have an obligation to project our military power half-way around the world to protect an independent nation whose people essentially chose to live in a hostile neighborhood, that suggeststs that we have a pretty high level of obligation to other people. High enough that it would require a fair amount of explaining for me to begin to believe that we should not also be obligated to provide some level of health care for people who otherwise would not be able to have it.

But, you do not see an obligation of the US to protect Israel, but rather believe that it is in our interests to do so. While I disagree with you in this, the right to health care is not germaine to that discussion.

Some of the other people on this board, however, seem to be profoundly hypocritical.

[Spectrum]

No one has a right to health care. As a society, it is in our best interest that people eat well, get their immunizations and don't become a breeding ground for new diseases that will infect everyone.

If you approach this problem from some "moral" angle instead of an economic angle, you will likely wind up with crappy socialism health care with everybody equal, except some elite people are more equal than others.

Why do you think most of the world's medical research has moved to America? Because we still have half our medical system capitalist. There is a profit incentive to developing MRI scanners, open air MRI scanners, hand held MRI scanners. Bring on the day when every soccer mom has a Palm 137 with MRI add on module. Should little Suzi play on her twisted ankle? Just scan it and let the computer diagnose you.

A capitalist system "sounds cruel" but winds up being the most moral as better and, eventually, cheaper health care emerge in the long run. Patents expire after 20 years and then the whole world reaps the benefits as generic knock off companies stampede into the market.

[Laocoön]

I had another thought, EB (that makes two this year!).

Do you think that rights are invented or only discovered? Of course it is a loaded question, and the load (for the moment) has to do with International Law as it existed in 1948. Know what I mean?

[E. Blackadder]

Hey, I do well to have an original idea in alternate decades.

I think the answer is "neither" and "both." Assuming for the moment that a right only exists within a context of human interaction, rights seem to me to be "eminations and penumbras" of philosophies, religious teachings, or workable frameworks which are intellectually and viscerally agreeable to a society.
And, not to belabor the obvious, one's right is another's obligation.
Philosophical inquiry and debate is always good.

[Laocoön]

What a fine answer, EB.

For myself, I think that there is a primordial "right" to do whatever one wants, but, as you say, this is abridged in acquiring the right not to have others do whatever they want to you.

I think of M. C. Escher designing one of his geometric patterns -- you start with a field of hexagons, but you might extend this corner thus with the effect that at the same time the corresponding, opposit corners are brought in by equal and off-setting amounts. Maybe you decide to have hexagons; maybe you decide to have salamanders. Either is reasonable as long as no hexagon or no salamander claims any corner that is not claimed by every other hexagon/salamander.

Probably that doesn't make any sense to anyone but me.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Laocoön on 2001-10-09 09:38 ]</font>

[Anonymous]

Isn't anyone going to expound on positive vs. negative rights? Don't make me do it, I'll blather on forever.

[Hierophant]

How you define a right is interconnected with its origin. From God or "natural law", or from societal convention?

What is the effect of the right? I can think of three cases, dealing with the notion of obligations:

1. The right creates no obligation; rather, it is a reservation of free will.

2. The right creates a negative obligation. Thus, the right to live creates a negative obligation: to not kill others. This limits the expression of free will of one person so as to protect the free will of another.

3. The right creates a positive obligation. Thus, one person's right forces another person to take certain positive actions. By creating a duty to another person, the person on whom the obligation is imposed is, in effect, "enslaved" by the right.

A "right" to health care would be of the third type, and I have problems with this. Primarily, this type of right leads to socialism. Secondarily, there is no corresponding obligation on the person asserting the right to health care to maintain their own health.

Thus, the tobacco lawsuit: smokers had the right to health care under the Medicaid system, but not the obligation to maintain their own health by not smoking. The near-trillion dollar settlement shows the cost of this irresponsibility.

Finally, health care is a bottomless pit; is it even possible to make it a right?

[Hierophant]

On 2001-10-09 10:23, Choam Nomsky wrote:
Isn't anyone going to expound on positive vs. negative rights? Don't make me do it, I'll blather on forever.


I started my post before yours hit - spent the time to pare it down so I wouldn't blather on forever (as I am prone to do.)

As I noted, it goes beyond positive and negative rights to imposing obligations on others - which leads to social contract theory and socialism.

[E. Blackadder]

The problem with Escher is that you find yourself walking upward without end -- and getting nowhere. Or you can't tell which way is up anymore.

Instead of Escher, I encourage you to take up GO. "Go is to chess as philosophy is to double-entry accounting." -- Trevanian

[Hierophant]

I imagine Lao's go game would be mane-go: tiresome and questionably sound at best.

Any other go playing actuaries out there??

Yahoo Games has a Go room, but the quality of play is sporadic at best, and many of the games go unfinished.

igs, or the Internet Go Server, is the premier go location on the internet. It is a telnet destination, and you generally need to download a client to conveniently play a game. They have a web page at

http://panda-igs.joyjoy.net/English

Best of all, it is free, unlike the major chess and bridge servers (or so I understand.)

The igs rating system is the best available, in that it includes rated play from all levels up to the professional, and includes hundreds of thousands of games - so that there is a strong statistical base for the ratings. They also provide a discussion of the rating system, which may be of some interest to actuaries.

[E. Blackadder]

I just started about a couple of months ago, myself. I'll be at the congress in 2002, wearing the placard "Will work for Me."

You might enjoy the periodic "supergo" events on Yahoo. China vs. Japan vs. Korea vs. World.

[Hierophant]

You can pretty much kiss you FSA goodbye.