Interesting observation on my Health Care poll - "right" vs "privilege".

[NRaleighLiberal]

Nearly 60 people responded, and it was pretty steady throughout - 10% of responders feel that good health care is a privilege....thankfully, 90% felt it was a right (this is DU, after all).

What was disappointing is that none of the 10% fessed up and explained how they could possibly feel the way that they do. what do you think....the hidden troll/freeper factor responsible???

[gateley]

1. My vote is for troll freeps -- DUers would have explained their positions. nt

[2Design]

2. In the countries (Canada) that have health care - it is a privilege and is right

I didn't vote because it isn't a right - look at all the people in poor countries without anything
It is the right thing to do for humanity and I suspect any religion or their religious head would say that we are to take care of the least among us -

It is a privilege to have health care and CANADA and other countries know that even more now as they see our screw up system -

It is THE RIGHT MORAL thing to do - so the Party of NO who say they are christian are not Christ's followers because Christ would not do what they do to people -

So it is semantics

I believe if all people on earth had health care it would be a better place to live for all and in that way it is a right.

Everything I have seen about Canada this week makes me wish I had been born there or lived there with their benefits. They seem to have such a healthy look on life and hopefully they will not vote in any more conservatives and get rid of Harper

[Oregone]

10. If you feel that way, you oughta move there

If you can.

[2Design]

11. thank you so much for your permission - I was sure there would be one of you

[Oregone]

17. Just trying to be helpful

:)

[GeorgeRogerMeyers]

3. Health care- right or privilege

I vote for privilege.  A right is something that does not
require anyone else to pay for me to have that right.  That
goes for free speech, the right to own a gun, or the right to
not to self incriminate ( among others ).  

[valerief]

5. So I guess you don't believe in the right to a fair and speedy trial.

Courts cost money, after all.

[annabanana]

19. ..what valerief said. . . . n/t

[Oregone]

9. I dont like your font

[NYC_SKP]

4. I don't think its at all fair to accuse trollery for an opinion.

I'm on the fence about it. (I'm sorry I didn't see the poll)

There are things that are truly Rights, as in the Government is constitutionally obliged to provide them.

Or to prevent the infringement of them.

With Health Care, I'm CERTAIN that the government has a role in preventing the abuse of citizens by Corporations, including the HC industry.

Do we as citizens have a RIGHT to government provided health care?

I'm less certain about this, (as much as I support a single payer system).

I'm not sure I want to lump it in with freedom of speech, assembly, religion, due process, etc.

~~~~~~~~~~

Does this make me a freeper troll?

:shrug:

[havocmom]

7. +1

Well stated.

[cherokeeprogressive]

16. The issue actually confuses me.

My heart wants to say it is a right. My head asks how it could be a right, when it's actually a service provided by another person. To become a health care provider, a body has to make a decision early in life, and then perform almost flawlessly 70-80 hours a week for way more than a decade.

What if in the future less and less people decide to pursue a career in medicine? Say, the same way less and less people want to enter the clergy?

The rights you enumerated in your post, freedom of speech, assembly, religion, and due process are not tangible things. You can't smell 'em or feel 'em. None of those rights require another human to lay a hand on you or touch you with a stethoscope or anything like that.

How would the right to healthcare be enforced if there were no one to provide it?
-----
I've been called a freeper troll for the four plus years I've been here, so that doesn't bother me any longer. I don't think it a trollish question though.

[Quantess]

6. I suggest you link to your poll. Thanks in advance.

Edit: I just unrecommended because you didn't.
Your stupid poll is nowhere on the first page of GD, so why should anyone care?

[Oregone]

8. Its not a right until you are willing to fight for it, and then do so

There is no God to give you rights universally. And there is no fighting to secure them here. Just triangulation

[wial]

12. food clothing shelter and medicine

are the four essential rights that extend from our basic right to happiness, which is just an extension of the tendency of things to seek equilibrium. If we screw it up, so be it, but our institutional reality ought to provide at least basic versions of those things no questions asked. If it does not, it is doing wrong and must be changed.

These are ideas far older than historical socialism. They're just well-examined common sense and basic decency, worked out for millenia all over the world.

As for the debate about rights, that's a western thing that grew out of the troubles the papacy had with the franciscan movement, and Occam's intervention in the argument. The pope objected to Francis' poverty saying people had a right to property. Occam said well if that's true, here's a whole raft of other rights we might want to consider too. A good, brilliant, thing, but historically nuanced and thus, suspect. Too based on the individual, in that tertiary phase, getting away from Francis' original deep intent.

[Alias Dictus Tyrant]

13. As a matter of semantics, it is not a right.

A "right" is something that doesn't disappear just because no one else is around to give it to you.

[beevul]

14. If it is a right...

Can one be forced to exercise that right?

I'm not saying that it is or that it isn't.


I tend to lean toward it being a right, but potential answers to that question trouble me - a mandate.

Everyone has a right to free speech, but everyone also has a right to remain silent.


:shrug:

[rampart]

15. health care is a defense issue

we empower our government to fight infections, epidemics, biological warfare etc.

these certainly kill more americans than mere hijackers.

[eridani]

18. Health care ought to be a PUBLIC GOOD

Like transportation infrastructure. Many find it odd to think of roads and bridges as "rights," but they are certainly public goods. I'd put health care in that category.

[Vinca]

21. I agree. One undiagnosed case of TB could cause a catastrophe.

Health care for all is a public safety issue.

[NRaleighLiberal]

20. Great debate - thanks all - this is the sort of dialog I will looking for.

It is semantics, but it is also gets to people's deep inherent feelings. In a civilized country that has so much wealth, I think it becomes a moral "right" - as in how can a country so wealthy leave so many behind. Then again, I am a bleeding heart liberal - the world is an organism, a community - and I feel that personal selfishness and greed is ruining everything.

[ThomWV]

22. I have not considered if it is a privilege or not, but I've thought about it being a Right - its not

It is no right at all. No right can demand action from another person, but health care by definition requires that one do for another.

[NRaleighLiberal]

23. Link to the poll

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7803714