‘Health Care Mythology’ Meets Reality

Just read an excellent breakdown of the flawed thinking behind many of the justifications for the radical restructuring of the US health care system being pushed by the Obama Administration.  It’s somewhat long (though not a dry read), so I won’t rehash the arguments here.  But I did want to highlight something that I think was expressed beautifully, and does a better job of getting across a point I tried to make, in a previous post, about access to health care not being a right:

Listing rights generally involves enumerating things you may do without interference (the right to free speech) or may not be done to you without your permission (illegal search and seizure, loud boy-band music in public spaces). They are protections, not gifts of material goods. Material goods and services must be taken from others, or provided by their labor, so if you believe you have an absolute right to them, and others don’t choose to provide it to you, you then have a “right” to steal from them.

Exactly.