Socialized Medicine Violates the 13th Amendment
In this article, Yaron Brook very eloquently defends individual rights against the gigantic, emotionally pulsating, collectivist death-machine.
Although this glob of evil seems to be just another page out of the collectivist playbook, there is a distinguishing factor that is noteworthy. Most socialized schemes simply want to horde the results of your productivity in order to redistribute to those who need them more. Socialization of medicine actually takes it a step further in that it requires the wrangling of a highly specialized skill set. Not only does it need your money to pay for someone else’s care, it also needs the brain and body of the individual who completes the equation - the physician. To exist, it needs both indirect and direct slavery.
Despite the emotional appeal that government-imposed “universal health care” would repair American medicine, it would utterly destroy it. A “national” health care system would be immoral, impractical and unconstitutional; it violates the volition of all parties involved, which stifles their ability to innovate, administer, or effectively conduct business.
It is immoral because there is no individual right to health care. There is only the right to pursue the ends that maintain one’s survival without encroaching on the rights of others. It is immoral (commonly known as theft) to take from one individual, to sacrifice one individual, for the sake of another. Individuals are responsible for their own (and anyone else’s whom they choose) health care cost and choices. Medical care is a service that requires expertise in biology, anatomy, medicine and technology. Individuals who achieve this expertise spend a large portion of their life becoming educated and adept in these fields. They then assume extremely high risk in administering and executing their skill set. Individuals who offer this service have the moral right to charge whatever cost they see fit. You and I as consumers have the choice to either use their service (on their terms) or not. That’s it… we have no right to their expertise, no right to a portion of their life… regardless of who’s footing the bill.
It is impractical because the free-market is the only proven means to innovation and productivity. The reason we have $400 notebook computers and $500 50″ flat panel televisions is the free-market. Any time you abandon the objective rules of economics, innovation and value suffer. Entrusting government the responsibility of managing life or death situations for millions of individuals is absurd. The same dysfunction that thrives in public education and all other socialized schemes will prevail in the most deadly way imaginable.
It would be unconstitutional because no where in the either the Constitution, Bill of Rights, Declaration of Independence, or any other document pertinent to the founding of our nation, is government meddling in the health care industry mentioned. Conversely, the 13th Amendment abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, both of which are required by socializing medicine. Forcing professionals to render services outside of their terms and/or forcing individuals (you and I) to pay for someone else’s medical care is slavery.
13-1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime where of the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
We have no right to health care - period. By definition a right cannot impose action on another individual… only privileges or mandates can do such.
The real culprit responsible for our current state of medicine is Government. Government meddling in the insurance and medical industries is precisely what has led us to where we are. This read in The Objective Standard offers a vivid summary of the meddling. Get Government completely out of medicine and our level of affordable care, technology and innovation will soar to unprecedented heights.
Our lack of socialized medicine is one of our last remnants of capitalism and the principles this once great nation was founded on. Science, technology and productive individuals coupled with our consistently objective friends, supply and demand, is the only prescription that can/will remedy the woes of American medicine.
February 10th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
[…] That is the ultimate goal of our anti-conceptual leaders, and to the extent that we’ll let them. As they attempt to work their way towards that goal, our standard of living will suffer in every aspect. One of the most intimidating venues is the socialization of medicine. Those in the medical field are already responding as any individual subjected to the threat of slavery would, resistance and avoidance. In the last several months there have been reports in medical journals about an impending shortage of primary care physicians. This spring in the health policy journal Health Affairs, researchers at the University of Missouri-Columbia and the federal Department of Health and Human Services published a study that projected a generalist physician shortage of 35,000 to 44,000 by the year 2025. The researchers based their figures on current physician usage patterns and did not take into account increases that might occur because of rising access to health care. […]
February 10th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
[…] And another bloated, inappropriate and menacing arm of the Government is born. By what right does the Government deem the appropriateness or cost-effectiveness of my private health concerns? The only moral and practical guide for both mine and a physicians decisions is our rational judgment. America justly discarded such guiding notions in 1865, but collectivist-statism has smuggled them back in. What penalties will deter your doctor from going beyond the electronically delivered protocols when your condition is atypical or you need an experimental treatment? The vagueness is intentional. In his book, Daschle proposed an appointed body with vast powers to make the “tough” decisions elected politicians won’t make. […]