The health care speech: a moral Obamination — VOICES for REASON

President Obama defended his latest health care plan—yet another sprawling mass of dictates, mandates, prohibitions, and subsidies—as not only economically practical but above all moral. Quoting the late Senator Kennedy, he said: “What we face, is above all a moral issue; at stake are not just the details of policy, but fundamental principles of social justice and the character of our country.”

The President and the Senator are right about one thing: health care is above all a moral issue. Unfortunately, the ‘social justice’ morality behind universal healthcare is utterly un-American and destructive.

A proper system of health care, based on America’s founding principle of individual rights, is one in which each individual has a right to pursue health care on a free market of medical professionals and insurance companies. Such a system recognizes each individual’s right to his own life, and responsibility for its preservation—as well as the right of doctors and others to assist the poorest Americans through private charity. The practical result would be the same as emerges in any truly free market; ever better, cheaper products and services for your (health care) dollar.

“Social justice” in health care provides individuals a right to whatever health care they need simply because they need it, regardless of how much others are forced to pay. It means that individuals do not have responsibility for their own health. On Obama’s “social justice” plan, the amount of coverage the successful owe the needy is unlimited. He promises to make sure insurance companies “will no longer be able to place some arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or a lifetime.” This would put every insurance company on the hook for providing the most expensive, state-of-the-art medicine from cradle to grave!

The whole notion of a “right” to health care is the antithesis of justice; it means that those who are willing and eager to earn their health care on a free market of medical care provided by free medical professionals and free insurance companies, are forbidden from doing so. The “right” to health care is the source of all the problems in our current health care market, which is chock-full of 60-years worth of “social justice” manipulations that make everyone responsible for everyone else’s bills, and no one responsible for his own. This unjust system incentivizes individuals to consume far more health care than they would in a free market, leading to skyrocketing prices—prices the government blames on “the free market,” and “solves” through crippling controls on the market, including rationing. Once the bill for ObamaCare’s Santa Claus promises comes due, the controls will only get worse.

Health care is a moral issue. And it should be dealt with via the American morality of individualism, individual responsibility, and individual rights.