The "Right" to Healthcare

Possibly the most common argument from those in favor of increased government intervention is that healthcare is a right for everyone. They see healthcare as a need just as necessary as food and water, reasoning, "If a person does not have healthcare, they will either die or have their quality of life severely diminished. Therefore it is necessary and must be provided." However, this view does not differentiate between rights and needs, two categories that may overlap but may also hold completely contradictory points.

Healthcare is a need. Everyone who has ever lived has needed medical care at some point in their life or will in the future. It is no different from air, shelter, or either of the other aforementioned needs, food and water. When healthcare is treated as a need and only a need, a person cannot be forced to give healthcare to someone who cannot or will not get it for themselves.

When healthcare is treated as more than a need, however, and is given the status of a right, matters change. If a person is not willing or able to exercise their right to healthcare independently, then, of course, someone must provide it for them, by force if necessary. This idea violates the rights of a person to be secure in their life, liberty, and property; if a person refuses to give their property against their will, they must give their liberty by going to jail, and if they refuse to give their liberty, their life is taken from them.

Thus the "right" to healthcare inherently conflicts with the idea of natural law-the right to life, liberty, and property. Life, liberty, and property are indeed needs, but they also go beyond that: they are rights. They are concepts so valuable that they are taken away, justice is inevitably violated. Defining healthcare as a right leads to a conflict of interest that can only result in theft, slavery, and murder: the violation of justice.