Is Healthcare A right or Responsibility ??

**JohnSmith** · 03-20-2017, 10:40 PM

Is Healthcare A right or Responsibility ??

Very Simple Question

**JohnSmith** · 03-20-2017, 10:42 PM

In the USA it is not free and not a right. We are having that debate now.

**~~War Chef~~** · 03-20-2017, 10:45 PM

Funny you ask, had a debate with my friend about that yesterday. .. I think it's a right of govt. He thinks it's a privelege. Waiting for someone else to give a complex answer, I don't feel like thinking too much.

**JohnSmith** · 03-20-2017, 10:46 PM

Originally Posted by Potato

Funny you ask, had a debate with my friend about that yesterday. .. I think it's a right of govt. He thinks it's a privelege.

I think it is a little of both, but should be affordable and accessible to the poor and rich.

**ÁGUIA** · 03-20-2017, 11:02 PM

A right in my pov, I think is the State/goverment's responsibility to ensure the right to health protection, and guarantee the access to all citizens, regardless of their economic condition, to the care of preventive, curative and rehabilitative medicine.

**JohnSmith** · 03-20-2017, 11:03 PM

Originally Posted by ÁGUIA

A right in my pov, I think is the State/goverment's responsibility to ensure the right to health protection, and guarantee the access to all citizens, regardless of their economic condition, to the care of preventive, curative and rehabilitative medicine.

But what happens if the government runs out of other people's money.

**Uzarel** · 03-20-2017, 11:18 PM

If a person is able to contribute to a society, then it is in the interest of that society to provide healthcare to the person. It's not so much a 'right' of the individual as it is needed for the survival of a community.

There are people who are not capable of contributing, e.g. disabled people, the elderly or the terminally ill. In those cases providing healthcare is harder to justify on the same utilitarian grounds, but I would guess that withdrawing healthcare from those people would lead to resentment and social instability, therefore it should not be withdrawn.

**MissMischief** · 03-20-2017, 11:39 PM

Ok, I'll be a bit "technical". The thing about 'rights' is that they're exactly what we decide they are. For example, the 2nd Amendment of the US Constitution grants a 'right' to bear arms. We don't have that in Italy - because very few rights are absolute. There's no doctrine of universally accepted international law that says 'x is a right, y isn't' - countries and societies accept the introduction of certain rights because they believe it would be beneficial to their particular society to have it in place.

However, I'd agree that being given healthcare, at least in Italy, isn't a 'right' per se - it's not covered by any legal definition of rights we've adopted (Human Rights Act, ECHR etc) and it wouldn't necessarily be illegal for the government to abolish the national health service (although it would be ridiculously unpopular). Thus, as it stands, free healthcare in Italy is simply an entitlement - i.e. you're granted it by law but a change in the law can take it away again - whereas rights are supposedly far harder/impossible to remove.

Having said that, I do support a universal healthcare system.

**JohnSmith** · 03-20-2017, 11:41 PM

You Europeans all believe in some form of Universal healthcare. I believe more in Universal and Affordable Access to healthcare.

**B01AB20** · 03-20-2017, 11:59 PM

it's a right and an obligation, I have to pay part of my salary to public healthcare, and I have the right to a 'free' public healthcare if I need it.

it's a forced insurance managed by the state.

apart from that I can have private healthcare if I want too, paying a private healthcare insurance.