http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul557.html
By Ron Paul
Political philosopher Richard Weaver famously and correctly stated that ideas have consequences. Take for example ideas about rights versus goods. Natural law states that people have rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. A good is something you work for and earn. It might be a need, like food, but more “goods” seem to be becoming “rights” in our culture, and this has troubling consequences. It might seem harmless enough to decide that people have a right to things like education, employment, housing or healthcare. But if we look a little further into the consequences, we can see that the workings of the community and economy are thrown wildly off balance when people accept those ideas.
First of all, other people must pay for things like healthcare. Those people have bills to pay and families to support, just as you do. If there is a “right” to healthcare, you must force the providers of those goods, or others, to serve you.
Obviously, if healthcare providers were suddenly considered outright slaves to healthcare consumers, our medical schools would quickly empty. As the government continues to convince us that healthcare is a right instead of a good, it also very generously agrees to step in as middle man. Politicians can be very good at making it sound as if healthcare will be free for everybody. Nothing could be further from the truth. The administration doesn’t want you to think too much about how hospitals will be funded, or how you will somehow get something for nothing in the healthcare arena. We are asked to just trust the politicians. Somehow it will all work out.
Universal Healthcare never quite works out the way the people are led to believe before implementing it. Citizens in countries with nationalized healthcare never would have accepted this system had they known upfront about the rationing of care and the long lines.
As bureaucrats take over medicine, costs go up and quality goes down because doctors spend more and more of their time on paperwork and less time helping patients. As costs skyrocket, as they always do when inefficient bureaucrats take the reins, government will need to confiscate more and more money from an already foundering economy to somehow pay the bills. As we have seen many times, the more money and power that government has, the more power it will abuse. The frightening aspect of all this is that cutting costs, which they will inevitably do, could very well mean denying vital services. And since participation will be mandatory, no legal alternatives will be available.
The government will be paying the bills, forcing doctors and hospitals to dance more and more to the government’s tune. Having to subject our health to this bureaucratic insanity and mismanagement is possibly the biggest danger we face. The great irony is that in turning the good of healthcare into a right, your life and liberty are put in jeopardy.
Instead of further removing healthcare from the market, we should return to a true free market in healthcare, one that empowers individuals, not bureaucrats, with control of healthcare dollars. My bill HR 1495 the Comprehensive Healthcare Reform Act provides tax credits and medical savings accounts designed to do just that.”
It really is amazing to hear a politician say the things that Ron Paul says. And his points are well made. The more the the medical industry has to play peak-a-boo with the federal government costs will go up, and quality and compassion will decrease. Let us simplify the equation. Health care – Government + Competition = The best possible solution. It’s inevitable.
A parable
One day a poor pregnant woman came to Ron Paul
“Oh, wise one” cried the woman. “I want to have an abortion. I have no money to raise this child”
Ron Paul gazed upon the poor woman and replied “No. Woman. The baby in your belly has a right to life. Go and have your baby and forget about an abortion”
So the woman had her baby.
The baby was born gravely sick.
It needed a doctor and expensive medical care.
So the woman returned to the Congressman
“My baby is sick. But I have no health insurance. My child needs expensive medical care. But I am poor and cannot afford a doctor nor the medical care that will keep him alive.”
Ron Paul placed his hands on the poor woman’s head.
“Health care is not a right. It is a good.” He reminded her . “If you knew you could never afford health insurance, you should never have had your baby.”
The woman’s child died after much suffering.
I like this parable. It touches on most angles of the issue. I would have to start out by saying that when Ron Paul tells the women not to have the abortion he is imparting his own opinion upon her. If she really wanted to have the abortion based on her concerns she definitely could have done that.
But that is not how the parable goes. Therefore, where does that leave us. Let’s focus on her rights.
She has the right to have sex.
She has the right to have sex without a condom.
She has the right to make the decision as to have the baby or not.
She has the right to actively pursue employment offering health care.
She does NOT have the right to pass the consequences of her decisions based on these rights to her neighbor.
Responsible people make responsible decisions.
The woman may have the right to has sex, but she also has the responsibility to avoid pregnancy unless she has the means and intentions to rear a child.
She has the right to do what she wishes with her own body, provided she does not harm anybody else with her actions.
At this point we can agree, or disagree, on whether or not a biological parasite (i.e., fetus not yet capable of independent living outside the womb) has rights. The indigent woman has the responsibility to not get pregnant.
If she cannot afford any method of contraception (whether barrier or chemical), then the only way in which she can realistically discharge the responsibility of not-getting-pregnant is to not have sex. At all.
It can be argued to be medically expedient to forcefully abort her pregnancy even if she were not interested in doing so.
Once one removes from any woman the right to her own body (including the right to wilfully abort a pregnancy) then you are removing from that woman ALL her rights — you have placed the rights of a biological parasite above the rights of a human being. Extend that to ALL women, and you have now reduced ALL women to walking wombs, whose only value is to bear and suckle the next generation of MEN.
Good response
A revised parable
One day a poor pregnant woman came to Ron Paul
“Oh, wise one” cried the woman. “My husband has abandoned me and my children for another woman. I cannot support this child in my belly. I want to have an abortion. ”
Ron Paul gazed upon the poor woman and replied “No. Woman. The baby in your belly has a right to life. Go and have your baby and forget about an abortion”
So the woman had her baby.
The baby was born gravely sick.
It needed a doctor and expensive medical care.
So the woman returned to the Congressman
“Oh wise one. My baby is sick. But I am poor. I have no means of support and no health insurance. My child needs expensive medical care.”
Ron Paul took the the poor woman’s hands in his.
“Health care is not a right. My child. It is a good.” He reminded her . “You chose to marry an unreliable man. You chose to be a wife and mother instead of learning a trade to support yourself. We are all responsible for our choices. If your child is sick and you cannot afford a doctor you have no one to blame but yourself.
The child died after much suffering
One day a poor pregnant woman came to Ron Paul
“Oh, wise one” cried the woman. “My husband has abandoned me and my children for another woman. I cannot support this child in my belly. I WANT to have an abortion.
End of conversation.
Re: Parable and revised Parable.
It is highly likely that Dr. Ron Paul or someone like him could make some kind of arrangement for care, or even provide charitable care. So, the end result of the parable is not a given.