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A Right or Not?

One aspect of the healthcare debate is determination on whether healthcare is classified as a human right or not. One usually hears the statement in the form of an individual saying, “that I personally believe healthcare is a human right.” I personally, don’t know what that means. All it tells me that there are things called human rights and healthcare is categorized them.

How I understand the concept of a human right, is that you have these concepts or laws that are applied to all that fall within the parameter of human. They are rules that guide what a person is owed by another, regardless of place or status. Difficult to exactly put into correct legal wording, which is why the legal codes tend to run a bit thick, but significantly easier to explain in broad philosophical principles. In the broad context I find that many of the proclaimed human rights to be derivations of allowing every individual to make their own decisions, freedom of choice about their life.

Parsing out what qualifies as a human right is usually a matter of what happens when expressions of freedom come into conflict. A person’s actions are restricted depending on the impact on the freedom of other’s involved. Now a freedom of action bracketed by influence on others sounds very different from an obligation to perfrom an action. And that is a central component of healthcare, an obligation of one person to perform actions for another. The obligation can come from a multitude of incentivising sources, altruism, heroism, monetary, legal, but they are causing similar effects.

Healthcare is important to helping someone maximize their individual liberty and freedom. If you are bed-ridden then your freedoms may allow for all the get up and go that you want, but your body won’t be having any of it. However, it is different from the category of human rights, in the sense that they are your individual and personal human rights. Healthcare requires more, sometimes a lot more. Human rights stem from the freedom to make your own choices of thought, word, and action until it infringes on the freedom of another. Healthcare stems from obligations of one on another’s behalf.

So what? I don’t think that healthcare is a human right, but I do think that healthcare is a privelege of our constantly expanding and improving world. Something that is worth maximizing across our local society to our global one. I see people who conflate the two concepts of healthcare and human rights as well meaning and sometimes having good policy with their ideas. But they are different and each has it’s limitations. How else are we going to talk about issues in the modern age of conflicts between public health and right of privacy. Two separate concepts from two different foundations, but both worth pursuing and essential to our lives.

A Right or Not?

One aspect of the healthcare debate is determination on whether healthcare is classified as a human right or not. One usually hears the statement in the form of an individual saying, “that I personally believe healthcare is a human right.” I personally, don’t know what that means. All it tells me that there are things called human rights and healthcare is categorized them.

How I understand the concept of a human right, is that you have these concepts or laws that are applied to all that fall within the parameter of human. They are rules that guide what a person is owed by another, regardless of place or status. Difficult to exactly put into correct legal wording, which is why the legal codes tend to run a bit thick, but significantly easier to explain in broad philosophical principles. In the broad context I find that many of the proclaimed human rights to be derivations of allowing every individual to make their own decisions, freedom of choice about their life.

Parsing out what qualifies as a human right is usually a matter of what happens when expressions of freedom come into conflict. A person’s actions are restricted depending on the impact on the freedom of other’s involved. Now a freedom of action bracketed by influence on others sounds very different from an obligation to perfrom an action. And that is a central component of healthcare, an obligation of one person to perform actions for another. The obligation can come from a multitude of incentivising sources, altruism, heroism, monetary, legal, but they are causing similar effects.

Healthcare is important to helping someone maximize their individual liberty and freedom. If you are bed-ridden then your freedoms may allow for all the get up and go that you want, but your body won’t be having any of it. However, it is different from the category of human rights, in the sense that they are your individual and personal human rights. Healthcare requires more, sometimes a lot more. Human rights stem from the freedom to make your own choices of thought, word, and action until it infringes on the freedom of another. Healthcare stems from obligations of one on another’s behalf.

So what? I don’t think that healthcare is a human right, but I do think that healthcare is a privelege of our constantly expanding and improving world. Something that is worth maximizing across our local society to our global one. I see people who conflate the two concepts of healthcare and human rights as well meaning and sometimes having good policy with their ideas. But they are different and each has it’s limitations. How else are we going to talk about issues in the modern age of conflicts between public health and right of privacy. Two separate concepts from two different foundations, but both worth pursuing and essential to our lives.