ABQJOURNAL OPINION/GUEST_COLUMNS: In U.S., Health Care Never Was an Entitlement

Friday, March 04, 2011

In U.S., Health Care Never Was an Entitlement

By Dr. John R. Vigil
Medical Director, Doctor-On-Call Urgent Care
And Dr. Deane Waldman
Author of "Uproot U.S. Healthcare"
          A New Mexico constitutional amendment is under consideration to recognize health care as a basic human right.
        In the Feb. 25 Journal, retired public health doctor Bruce Trigg passionately supported its passage. With respect to our well-meaning colleague, this amendment is bad for patients as well as our nation.
        This country was founded on principles rooted in individual freedom — from control by a monarch, by a government or by the group with the loudest voice. "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness" as well as the Bill of Rights describe negative rights. They say what others cannot do to you, rather than what you are entitled to. Your "inalienable...right to Life" is not a right to live. It is a prohibition against an individual or the government killing you.
        Our Founding Fathers, five of whom were physicians, did not accidentally "forget" about health care. The society they created was based on personal freedom and individual responsibility. The majority would never enslave a minority — viz., providers — in order to provide the majority with any "right," such as a personal service called health care....
        Compelling one group to provide for the needs or wants of another is antithetical to U.S. core principles. The Founding Fathers clearly cast the first 10 amendments — the Bill of Rights — as constraints on group (government) control of the individual. There are no American rights that should be entitlements.
        Dr. Trigg asks "why can't we guarantee that everyone has medical care on the same basis that we provide police and fire protection and universal free education"? The analogy with health care does not work.
        Firstly, they are not "free" nor are they entitlements. The government provides these services solely to protect our persons and our private property. Further, they are based on and presume some reasonable level of personal responsibility.
        If you pull the fire alarm without a fire, you will pay for the fire department response. If you ignore forestry guidelines when hiking and require a rescue, you will receive a hefty bill. We all know how expensive property taxes are, the ones that pay for "free education."
        So we must ask Dr. Trigg and other supporters of the amendment: Does "health care as a basic human right" require any degree of personal responsibility? If not, government and its agent — the provider — become responsible. Health-care-as-a-right lets the individual off the hook and makes us all pay for the consequences of an irresponsible patient's unhealthy lifestyle choices.
        When the government is responsible rather than the individual, the government is in control. Do the supporters of the proposed state amendment believe the signers of the Declaration of Independence were just kidding in their opposition of tyranny?
        The Founding Fathers also understood that the free market — not a federal government — drives the economy and provides the greatest good for the greatest number. They understood — unlike modern politicians — that the "invisible hand" of the market works best unfettered and unrestrained by the "heavy hand" of oppressive government, burdensome bureaucratic regulations, onerous taxes and union extortion. If health care becomes a right, the latter is what we will get.
        What does health-care-as-a-right produce? Answer: a sickly American population that requires health care without limit, and a grossly inefficient, obscenely bloated and expanding federal bureaucracy.
        Resisting health-care-as-a-right does not make the physician-authors unfeeling monsters. It is precisely because we care deeply that we oppose loudly touted, ill-conceived legislation that harms our patients and our nation. Like us, the Founding Fathers would certainly oppose this un-American amendment that takes us from the age of enlightenment to an age of entitlement.

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