Is health care a right? Is free speech a right? What is a right?

[Mojo2]

President Barack Obama: His signature health care plan, the Affordable Care Act, is, in effect, a government takeover of the American health care system, says a writer for the Heritage Foundation.

Obamacare: Say hello to government control

By Robert E. Moffit Oct. 10, 2013

On health care, the president's pile of broken promises keeps rising. Consider this gem from Aug. 20, 2009: "Let's be clear about the fact that nobody has proposed anything close to a government takeover of health care."

Well, yes, somebody did. President Barack Obama is now well on his way to orchestrating the federal government's "takeover" of Americans' health care.

Commandeering the resources of major federal departments, particularly the Department of Health and Human Services and the Internal Revenue Service, the administration and its allies in Congress have created numerous federal bureaus, commissions and programs, issued thousands of pages of rules, regulations, guidelines and directives, reinforced by unprecedented mandates and new taxes, fees, fines and penalties. Central planning and coercion holds this sprawling thing together.

The president's supporters insist this isn't a "government takeover" — that's a "myth," they say, because private insurance plans and providers will still exist.

Sure, they will. As long as they do as they are told. Virtually all key health care decisions will be made by government officials. Not you. Not your employer. Not your insurance company.

Beginning on Jan. 1, government officials will require you to buy a federally approved health plan or pay federal fines or tax penalties. They will define and redefine, at their pleasure, the content of your health benefits package, meaning the medical treatments and procedures you must have; the kind and level of preventive health care services you must have; the level of coverage that you must have; the level of cost sharing, deductibles and co-payments that are acceptable — to them, not you.

Writing in the October 2010 edition of The New England Journal of Medicine, Sara Rosenbaum, professor of law at George Washington University and supporter of the law, perhaps best described the Obamacare's transformative effect on private insurance: "It will take on certain characteristics of a public utility." In other words, private insurance will be "private" in name only.

As a "public utility," you get what government officials say you will get, and you will learn to like it. As the president and his allies keep telling us, it's the law of the land. We are not going to "re-litigate" it. So get over it, get used to it and shut up.

Another View | Health Care - Obamacare: Say hello to government control

 

[thereisnospoon]

A lot of people like to argue against the ACA by claiming that health care is not a right.

Declaring whether something is a right or not is bull.

People are only entitled to rights that those in power allow them to have.

Congress and the president could pass a law outlawing free speech after impeaching all of the Supreme Court and replacing them with rubber stamp puppet heads who would rule that outlawing free speech rights was constitutional.

Then, the people would not have the right to free speech.

A right is a legal invention that doesn't really mean anything because all laws are excuses that people in power use to control people who are not in power.

So, if it is true that health care is not a right, than it's legally justifiable to watch people who can't afford it drop dead when they could be cured...but that doesn't make it right whether it's a "right" or not.

In other words people who say health care is not a right, just need to sit down and shut up.

Actually they’re a legal discovery, as rights are inalienable, and predate all governments, constitutions, and legal systems.

Access to healthcare is indeed not a right, but it doesn’t need to be.

The people are at liberty to seek measures through their elected representatives in Congress that promote the realization of a given desired goal, such as providing Americans access to affordable healthcare. Government can therefore be instructed to pursue such a goal although it is not compelled to do so as a consequence of that desired goal being a right.

The ACA, for example, was enacted into law by Congress at the behest of the American people. The Taxing and Spending Clause afforded Congress the authority to create the Act. See: NFIB v. Sebelius (2012).

The ACA is Constitutional not because it comports with a given right, but because Congress acted within its bounds afforded it by the Constitution.

At the end of it all, it took a 5-4 ruling for the SCOTUS to declare ACA was constitutional based on a legal technicality.
The basis of that ruling was that the PPACA was not commerce, but a tax.

 

[ClosedCaption]

All you did was Scream liar really loud then link to proof that its wrong...Wait, no you posted a link to a rebuttal lol. Written by the guy at Heritage Foundation lol. In 2012 RLMAO...That says

-caused me to conclude we had made a mistake in the 1990s

Of course NOW its wrong...When OBAMA DOES IT.

 

[thereisnospoon]

Repubs spend a lot of time saying what something ISNT. No one cares if you call Healthcare a Right, a choice, Deserved or a blueberry pie.

Its needed because the cost of healthcare is too dam high

No it isn't......

 

[Listening]

And if 300 million people decide not to pay for the health care of 30 million people what happens to the majority agree part?

They are all selfish, uncaring, bastards.

 

[thereisnospoon]

There is a right to health care the same way there is a right to a pastrami sandwich. What you don't have is the right to make someone else buy your health care.

No one would be 'buying' it. You'd be paying taxes toward the system.

What's the difference. It's still central planning and the cost to taxpayers would be astronomical.
No thanks. I will take care of my own health insurance.
What do you care anyway? You don't live here. You don't get to have an opinion.
Are there no political websites in Australia you can go on and torture people with your stupidity?

 

[Listening]

All you did was Scream liar really loud then link to proof that its wrong...Wait, no you posted a link to a rebuttal lol. Written by the guy at Heritage Foundation lol. In 2012 RLMAO...That says

-caused me to conclude we had made a mistake in the 1990s

Of course NOW its wrong...When OBAMA DOES IT.

We is who, the GOP....sorry, but no.

I guess you just can't let of the meme when to do so only forces you to face the reality that the head fraud and all his little minions can't run a web site much the health care system for a large nation....well, that just gotta be painful.

Yes, we all know.....it's painful.

 

[TemplarKormac]

I heard a liberal once say that healthcare insurance is a human right. Okay, so how is it a human right when you force them to buy it?

 

[Listening]

If heath care is a right, then most all other goods and services should be rights also. I should have the right to drink all the beer I want out of your fridge.

Just what are people are talking about ?

What is this "health care" that you have a right to ?

Has the left ever defined it ?

 

[dblack]

If heath care is a right, then most all other goods and services should be rights also. I should have the right to drink all the beer I want out of your fridge.

Just what are people are talking about ?

What is this "health care" that you have a right to ?

Has the left ever defined it ?

It's actually 'access' to health care.

'Access' means the power to force someone else to give you stuff.

 

[Katzndogz]

If heath care is a right, then most all other goods and services should be rights also. I should have the right to drink all the beer I want out of your fridge.

You do have a right to drink beer. You just don't have a right to force someone else to buy your beer.

 

[blackhawk]

If some want to believe healthcare is a right fine it's your right to have healthcare it is not however your right to have other's pay for it.

 

[bripat9643]

Why did Heritage, the bastion of the right, say Healthcare is a right back in the Clinton days?

Why did that change at the exact same moment that Obama adopted their plan?

Because Heritage is corrupt and sucks up to the elites in Washington.

 

[Kosh]

Health care is not a right, but it's nonsense to feel like that settles the question. Roads aren't a right either, but no one is suggesting the government stop building them.

Exactly. Saying health care isn't a right, doesn't mean government can't provide it as a service. It merely means it doesn't fall under government's express purpose of protecting our rights. Whether we think government should have the power to provide health care, or health insurance, depends on our reading of the Constitution.

In the case of ACA, whether health care is a right is irrelevant, as the Court has decided that government has the power to use the tax code to force us to buy products from their corporate sponsors. The right in question is the right to refuse to buy a product or service you don't want.

Two far left posters without a clue.

Driving is a privilege and one that can be taken away, should government mandated health insurance be the same way?

 

[Kosh]

If heath care is a right, then most all other goods and services should be rights also. I should have the right to drink all the beer I want out of your fridge.

Just what are people are talking about ?

What is this "health care" that you have a right to ?

Has the left ever defined it ?

Yes another law to control the masses and pretend they care about the American people especially the poor and middle class (note middle class to the far left equals only union jobs).

 

[dblack]

Health care is not a right, but it's nonsense to feel like that settles the question. Roads aren't a right either, but no one is suggesting the government stop building them.

Exactly. Saying health care isn't a right, doesn't mean government can't provide it as a service. It merely means it doesn't fall under government's express purpose of protecting our rights. Whether we think government should have the power to provide health care, or health insurance, depends on our reading of the Constitution.

In the case of ACA, whether health care is a right is irrelevant, as the Court has decided that government has the power to use the tax code to force us to buy products from their corporate sponsors. The right in question is the right to refuse to buy a product or service you don't want.

Two far left posters without a clue.

Interesting. How do you define 'far left'?

 

[Politico]

Read the Consititution and Bill of Rights. All of your questions will be answered.

 

[MsAnthrope]

Health care is not a right, but it's nonsense to feel like that settles the question. Roads aren't a right either, but no one is suggesting the government stop building them.

Exactly. Saying health care isn't a right, doesn't mean government can't provide it as a service. It merely means it doesn't fall under government's express purpose of protecting our rights. Whether we think government should have the power to provide health care, or health insurance, depends on our reading of the Constitution.

In the case of ACA, whether health care is a right is irrelevant, as the Court has decided that government has the power to use the tax code to force us to buy products from their corporate sponsors. The right in question is the right to refuse to buy a product or service you don't want.

There has been a lot of government spending that I do not are with and don't support. Did I have the right to withhold my funding? Did I have the right not to fund their wars? What is the difference?

What I'd I have no children? Can I chose not to fund the public education system?

(I wouldn't because I'm not an a$$hole, just sayin)

 

[Smilodonfatalis]

A right is something you have regardless of the actions of others. Freedom of speech for instance. I can say whatever I want with no help from anyone else.

Health car, however, is a service. Without doctors electing to work in the field of health care, no one would receive it. It's dependent on someone else providing it to you.

You pretty much ignored my example of how free speech would not be a right, if people in power outlawed it.

 

[Listening]

A right is something you have regardless of the actions of others. Freedom of speech for instance. I can say whatever I want with no help from anyone else.

Health car, however, is a service. Without doctors electing to work in the field of health care, no one would receive it. It's dependent on someone else providing it to you.

You pretty much ignored my example of how free speech would not be a right, if people in power outlawed it.

That is why we have the second amendment.

The day that free speech is taken away is the day the country no longer exists.

Time to start over.

Jay hit the nail on the head when he said people form governments (and cede some of their rights) for the express purpose of protecting the rest of them (their rights).

When government starts acting on it's own...duck.