| > I'm not sure its fair to argue that universal healthcare is a human right despite the fact it makes economic sense. “Universal right” is simply that which people feel all people ought to have. > Humanity survived just fine without real healthcare and healthcare “Universal healthcare” as a right is simply the right to a certain minimal level which is dependent on technology and resources. The fact that their have in the course of human history been times when no real healthcare by the standards of the early 21st century isn't material to that one way or the other. > healthcare is not essential to a fair balance of power b/t the government and its citizenry. That's quite arguably not the case; “government” is an a abstraction than the ultimately boils down to the subset of the citizenry with the most power in allocating resources, and it's quite arguable that that floors for allocation of resources in several domains, including healthcare, are essential for fair balance of power between that subset and the rest of the body of the citizenry. Further, your implicit argument that a “universal human right” must either be something that prehistoric humans could not survive without or relate to balance of power between people and government is simply a statement of your political values, not a boundary on the what “makes sense” as a universal right. > Universal healthcare needs to be argued on the economics of the issue because that is the only practical way to make it sustainable. The actual concrete floor at any given time must be, but then again since every OECD country which guarantees universal healthcare, regardlesa of the details of the system, does it for less total (measured by absolute expenditures, per capita, or per GDP) than the US does spends on healthcare (and some don it for less by all three measures than the US spends in the. smaller public portion of its system alone, let alone the private expenditures), the economics aren't really an issue when you are talking about the US system. |