Why There is No Right to Health Care (and other Progressive Ideas)
Rights are based on God-created equality among human beings–nothing else. Because men are created equal in their basic worth by being made in the image of God–they are entitled by God to the basic rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (acquiring property through labor). Everyone’s life is equal in intrinsic value; Everyone’s freedom is equal in breadth and beauty; And everyone’s right to pursue happiness (through acquiring property and wealth) is equal in opportunity.
But that’s where equality and rights end. All other things related to human beings are unequal and thus unworthy of the status of a “right.”
This is obviously and expressly true in the area of health–which is why President is wrong to declare health care a right. It can never be a right because too many factors make its demands unequal. These factors include:
- Genetics – some of us are born with great genes that are less susceptible to certain diseases and others more prone to heart problems, cancer, and neurological disorders. Due to our genetic make-ups, there is no way to “equally” distribute the right of health care. Why should someone prone to horrific diseases be able to demand a million dollars in health care over a lifetime and another who is relatively healthy be required to contribute to the tab through taxation? This is a simple matter of fairness. The general public is not responsible for the genetic disposition of others.
- Lifestyle Choices –I shared last week how my Canadian friend, Graham, bilked the Canadian government-run health care system out of hundreds of thousands of dollars becaue of his choices to live most of his life as a chain smoker. He destroyed his lungs over decades by sucking in nicotine. As a result of his poor choices, why should another healthy or wiser choosing Canadian be stuck with his health bills? It is simply not fair to charge someone else for another person’s sins and mistakes. This comes back to basic justice and decency.
- Personal Circumstances – Human beings also encounter many circumstances in life that are neither genetic or a product of their choices. Life just happens–filled with joys and sorrows that are totally non-comparable. One person has a house that burns to the ground. Another loses a child in a terrible traffic accident. From a health perspective, one might have an accident that requires major medical attention, while another is blessed with easier circumstances. Again, because of the inequalities involved in normal life, it would be wrong to ask one person to foot the bill for another. It would be essentially unjust and impossible for a human government to balance.
There is another important reason why there is no right to health care. This one relates to our relationship with our Creator. He is the author and giver of life–and oftentimes uses our personal circumstances to teach us His ways, create humility and obedience in our hearts, and draw our eyes toward eternity. If we remove that important means of personal growth through a government right to health care, we remove one of the greatest incentives to personal growth and drawing close to our Maker.
For seven years–from 1994 to 2001–I suffered with a very painful burning sensation in my throat. It got progressively worse over time and led me to consult over ten doctors, have two rabbit-trail surgeries, and cry out to God with all my heart for relief of pain and understanding of His ways.
During this difficult period, God continually drew me to 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 where the Bible declares that “my grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” I learned during this test in my life to be humble, prayerful, trusting in God and not in myself. I learned to take a deeper measure of my weaknesses and bad attitudes and asked him to produce a greater wealth of his goodness within me.
It was a hard time because I speak for a living. Every time I used my vocal cords, they were painfully sore and the intense burning in my throat got worse and worse. I remember numerous times getting ready to speak to an audience, crying some tears and asking God for the grace to get through the message. He always helped me and I learned to trust him as never before.
Late in the seven year test, I sensed that my deliverance was at hand because of his work in my life. I began to pray fervently for his will to be done, and opened my Bible to a special promise he had given me many years before.
One day in 2001, my wife was talking to her best friend who asked a simple question: “Have the doctors ever checked out Ron’s teeth?” When I heard the question, a bell went off inside of me and I immediately scheduled an appointment. To my dentist’s shock and surprise, they discovered that an abscessed wisdom tooth had created a ping-pong-ball-sized noxious cyst in my jaw–which leaked its poison into my throat every day. I had surgery within days, the cyst was removed and my throat eventually returned to normal. I never returned to “normal.” My life had been changed through this health care test.
I’m glad I didn’t have a “right” to health care during that ordeal. There are many lessons I would not have learned, many character traits that would not have been fully developed. If I’d had a right to everything, I would have demanded that right and forgotten about God. That’s the way we human beings tend to work.
Not having an automatic right to health care is very beneficial from a personal development standpoint. Suffering draws us closer to God. We seek his will and his answers. If the government’s footing the bill, there’s no one to seek but them. They are usually not as helpful as the God of the universe.
Health care must remain a personal responsibility–not a government right. We are genetically different, we make different choices in life, we encounter different circumstances, and we are all involved in a different relationship to our Creator in which he desires to work for our good. If the government and other tax payers become our new fountain of health, then justice will be impeded and many character lessons will be lost.
This is also why all other “progressive rights” ring hollow. There is no such thing as a right to a job, to a certain level of pay, to a house or car, or any other societal desire–because of the unique differences between people. All of these blessings are privileges–not rights–to be gained by the prayers, hard work, and wise choices of the individual. God is involved in all of these life opportunities also–and wants us to look to him for provision and personal spiritual growth.
It is through our suffering and pain–and very different circumstances in life–that we learn to grow up and put our trust in God. Insurance policies, church affiliations, and other voluntary arrangements–and even government–can be helpful in the process–but never to be depended upon.
There is no right to health care. Creating that right would be creating a new god in America who would not serve us well.
There is No Right to Quality of Life or Choice of Lifestyle
Now that the showcase health care summit is over, the progressives in charge of the US government are threatening to ram through Congress a federal takeover of medicine via a a little used Senate process called reconciliation. It’s a procedure that’s been used sparingly before, but only to “reconcile” the details of budgetary bills.
The liberals want to use this “nuclear option” to turn America away from free enterprise and toward the embrace of socialism.
Reconciliation in this context is branded the nuclear option because it will probably cause the average citizen in America to go “nuclear” over this abuse of power. Every poll in America shows that the citizens of our great nation don’t want this 2700 page bureaucratic monster to burden one-sixth of our economy. If our representatives were democratic they would vote the will of the people.
Barack Obama was the first presidential candidate in the history of the United States to declare that people have a right to health care. His primary opponent, Hillary Clinton, agreed with this amazing statement–never before heard in thoughtful American political discourse.
Why were these words over the top? Because the US Founding Fathers took a 5000 year leap in understanding in 1776 when they stated in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident. That all men are created equal, and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, and that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
Notice how, according to the Declaration, our legislators are first of all throwing out the “consent of the governed” in the current health care debate. More importantly, we need to be reminded which God-given rights governments are supposed to protect.
They would be: life, liberty, and property–which is the historical meaning of the phrase “pursuit of Happiness.” These are the ONLY God given rights to be protected and promoted by government. Not health care, not jobs, not homes, not immorality, not sex change operations ad nauseam.
These new kinds of progressive “rights” are made up by people. They do not come from God and always lead to poverty and tyranny. Pursuing these “rights” starts revolutions in nations.
Championing God-given rights and their corresponding responsibilities, on the other hand, lead to spiritual and moral revivals in nations. Which one of these–revolution or revival–do you really think America needs right now?
We need to ponder this truth about rights in the current health care debate: There is no right to quality of life or choice of lifestyle. If we think that there is, then many multi–thousand page bills will coming out of Washington, D.C. in subsequent years that will destroy our lives, our economy and our freedoms.
On a February 10, 2010 Medved radio program, Michael Medved was discussing with a certain Veronica in New York about her eighteen year old friend who desired to have a sex change operation and have the state pay for it. Veronica was convinced that people should have a “right” to have the government pay for this quality of life or lifestyle choice. If the person wanted it, the government (or someone besides the individual) should pay for it.
Mr Medved tried to explain that’s not the proper concept of rights. Our founders knew well that there were only three basic human rights that God has given to all people. These rights are the only things that governments exist to protect:
Governments are ordained by a Higher Power to provide justice, or protect our:
- Right to LIFE from DEATH
- Right to LIBERTY from SLAVERY
- Right to PROPERTY from TYRANNY
When governments stop protecting basic human rights and start providing all types of quality of life and so-called lifestyle choices, they leave their proper domain and open a Pandora’s box of societal demands that can never be paid for or met. Government was never designed to be your provider–only your protector from evil. Other than writing checks (which anybody can do), government is lousy at providing goods and services for people because of the lack of incentives and accountability that free markets provide.
Plus, once you believe you have a right to a certain quality of life or lifestyle choice, where does the list end? It doesn’t. That’s the foolishness of the position. If Veronica’s friend has the “right” for the government to pay for his/her preferred identity via a sex change operation, then why not pay for his or her preferred house, preferred job, or preferred entitlements of any type? This is the absurdity of the Obama-Clinton position. It expands human rights to include anything you want that will improve your circumstances.
Let’s see how this works out in the real world. A few years ago I flew to Europe to have hip surgery through a process not allowed at the time in the United States. My roommate in Belgium was a gentleman named Graham who was part of the socialized medical scheme in Canada that the progressives admire. He, too, needed hip surgery. I paid mine out of pocket. I didn’t have a “right” to the surgery–it was a quality of life or lifestyle choice for me. It painfully cost our family $15,000.
Graham and his nation took a different approach. Graham had been a chain-smoker all his life. In his late forties, his lungs were so destroyed by his lifestyle choices that he needed a double lung transplant to maintain his quality of life. The transplant had been paid for by the Canadian tax payers to the tune of $250,000. Then there was the thousands of dollars that needed to be spent on anti-rejection medicines for the rest of his life. That, too, was covered by the tax-payers. But there was a problem. The anti-rejection medicine caused hip joint deterioration, and so he needed the same surgery that I did to correct the problem. He was looking for the Canadian government-run system to cover it as well. Now they are going broke and rationing care.
I think you get the idea. Graham had bought into the illusion that he had a “right” to a certain quality of life. Never mind that he had smoked himself into bad health. He wanted someone else to fix it. When that fix caused other problems, then he had a “right” for those problems to be fixed too. And on and on.
Now you know why socialized medicine never works but rather bankrupts treasuries. It may be a nice idea to have the government pay for my quality of life, but the truth is, either my choices or circumstances in life determine quality of life–and I don’t have a right to have government improve it. I have a responsibility to seek out private, voluntary or charitable means to meet my needs. I need to learn to trust God, be accountable for my life–and not assume that anybody owes me anything.
Governments were designed by God to protect my right to life, liberty, and property. Nothing else. The moment we expand the list, then we end up in absurdity and societal poverty.
Can you imagine if I had tried Graham’s right-to-quality-of-life approach in my neighborhood or town instead of the federal government? What if I’d gone door-to-door demanding my “right” from my neighbors to pay for the $15,000 surgery. After, all, I have a right to quality of life! So here’s a bill for your portion of it! Pay up or else.
I don’t think that would have worked because on a local level it’s easy to see that none of us has a right to demand a certain quality of life from others. That’s up to us and the charitable choices of others. I did have some friends contribute to my hip surgery–but it was voluntary–not coerced. Government power is not voluntary–it’s the power of force. That’s another reason why it should only be only used to protect life, liberty and property.
The progressives are wrong about health care because they don’t look to God as our source of human rights and they want to change the role of government from being a protector to a provider.
That would be a foolish mistake–as unwise and detrimental as believing in a non-existent right to quality of life.
The Mount Vernon Statement
On February 23, 2010 eighteen American leaders gathered at George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate in Alexandria, Virginia to sign an historic document that calls the United States back to her founding principles.
The Mount Vernon Statement is an reaffirmation of the worldview that made America great–and brought the blessings of God for over two hundred years. America was a “unique experiment in liberty”–a nation birthed in Christian revival and the corresponding principles of the God-given rights of individuals and corresponding restraints on government.
I hope we all know that we live in very precarious times–ones in which the biblical worldview and the freedoms that it brings are in jeopardy.
We need a revival in the Church, an understanding of our history, a reformation in the culture and a change in direction in government. The modern day “tea parties” need to give birth to a new American Revolution that can restore the societal foundations now being dangerously eroded.
I encourage you to study the Mount Vernon Statement below and sign this important call to political renewal. We must be patriots all if this nation is to be reborn.
The Mount Vernon Statement on Constitutional Conservatism: A Statement for the 21st Century
We recommit ourselves to the ideas of the American Founding. Through the Constitution, the Founders created an enduring framework of limited government based on the rule of law. They sought to secure national independence, provide for economic opportunity, establish true religious liberty and maintain a flourishing society of republican self-government.
These principles define us as a country and inspire us as a people. They are responsible for a prosperous, just nation unlike any other in the world. They are our highest achievements, serving not only as powerful beacons to all who strive for freedom and seek self-government, but as warnings to tyrants and despots everywhere.
Each one of these founding ideas is presently under sustained attack. In recent decades, America’s principles have been undermined and redefined in our culture, our universities and our politics. The self-evident truths of 1776 have been supplanted by the notion that no such truths exist. The federal government today ignores the limits of the Constitution, which is increasingly dismissed as obsolete and irrelevant.
Some insist that America must change, cast off the old and put on the new. But where would this lead — forward or backward, up or down? Isn’t this idea of change an empty promise or even a dangerous deception?
The change we urgently need, a change consistent with the American ideal, is not movement away from but toward our founding principles. At this important time, we need a restatement of Constitutional conservatism grounded in the priceless principle of ordered liberty articulated in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
The conservatism of the Declaration asserts self-evident truths based on the laws of nature and nature’s God. It defends life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It traces authority to the consent of the governed. It recognizes man’s self-interest but also his capacity for virtue.
The conservatism of the Constitution limits government’s powers but ensures that government performs its proper job effectively. It refines popular will through the filter of representation. It provides checks and balances through the several branches of government and a federal republic.
A Constitutional conservatism unites all conservatives through the natural fusion provided by American principles. It reminds economic conservatives that morality is essential to limited government, social conservatives that unlimited government is a threat to moral self-government, and national security conservatives that energetic but responsible government is the key to America’s safety and leadership role in the world.
A Constitutional conservatism based on first principles provides the framework for a consistent and meaningful policy agenda.
* It applies the principle of limited government based on the rule of law to every proposal.
* It honors the central place of individual liberty in American politics and life.
* It encourages free enterprise, the individual entrepreneur, and economic reforms grounded in market solutions.
* It supports America’s national interest in advancing freedom and opposing tyranny in the world and prudently considers what we can and should do to that end.
* It informs conservatism’s firm defense of family, neighborhood, community, and faith.
If we are to succeed in the critical political and policy battles ahead, we must be certain of our purpose. We must begin by retaking and resolutely defending the high ground of America’s founding principles.
*Please sign the Statement by clicking here. Your name will be added to the larger list of signers displayed at the Mount Vernon Statement’s website.
The 18 original signers of the Mt. Vernon Statement:
• Edwin Meese, former U.S. Attorney General under President Reagan.
• Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America.
• Edwin Feulner, Jr., president of the Heritage Foundation.
• Lee Edwards, Distinguished Fellow in Conservative Thought at the Heritage Foundation, was present at the Sharon Statement signing.
• Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council.
• Becky Norton Dunlop, president of the Council for National Policy.
• Brent Bozell, president of the Media Research Center.
• Alfred Regnery, publisher of the American Spectator.
• David Keene, president of the American Conservative Union.
• David McIntosh, co-founder of the Federalist Society.
• T. Kenneth Cribb, former domestic policy adviser to President Reagan.
• Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform.
• William Wilson, President, Americans for Limited Government.
• Elaine Donnelly, Center for Military Readiness.
• Richard Viguerie, Chairman, ConservativeHQ.com.
• Kenneth Blackwell, Coalition for a Conservative Majority.
• Colin Hanna, President, Let Freedom Ring
• Kathryn J. Lopez, National Review