"Do you believe healthcare is a basic human right?"

The Right to National Bankruptcy

 

by Andrew Foy, MD

The right to healthcare has become synonymous with the right to medical insurance that covers all health related expenses— that's a big economic problem. 

....one must consider the reality of what having a right to healthcare, as it is presently understood, actually means, and then consider who wins.

• Does it mean that someone in a motor-vehicle accident has a right to emergency surgery that could save his life?
• Does it mean that a teenager with leukemia has a right to potentially life-saving treatment?
• Does it mean that a 60-year-old experiencing a major heart attack has a right to emergent therapy?
• Does it mean that this same 60-year-old, after the heart attack is over, has a right to a cardiac rehabilitation program, routine office visits with a cardiologist, routine lab work, routine studies to monitor cardiac function, and life-long medications to control blood pressure, cholesterol, and diabetes knowing that doing these things will not eliminate the risk of another event but rather reduce it by a few percentage points a year?
• Does it mean that this same person, 12 years down the road, has a right to an implantable cardioverter defibrillator, cardiac resynchronization therapy, and a left ventricular assist device for destination therapy when he eventually develops end-stage heart failure?

Read more: mises.org