Health care is one of the most important issues for every country and how the health care system should be organized has still caused a lot of controversy around the world, especially in America. William Liberal points out in his article “All Americans have a right to free health care”, published in Left Coast Times in 2012 that free health provided for all Americans is a praiseworthy idea.
Jacob G.Hornberger, on the other hand, claims in his article, “Health care is not a right”, published on The Future of Freedom Foundation website in 2009 that free health care is not likely a good solution. This essay will critically respond to the authors’ main arguments.William asserts that the right to health care should be considered as a civil right which was described in the Declaration of Independence that people all have the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Moreover, he argues that health and happiness are positively correlated and hence it seems to be reasonable to support the free health care system. In contrast, Jacob offers different perspective on this issue as he contends that those rights described in the Declaration of Independence is not the means to force someone to sustain or improve others’ lives.
However, there are several problems with William’s arguments. On this world, nothing is considered to be free at all, which means that something else should have to be exchanged for such free things. Therefore, the answer of the question that how the government can generate the revenue to pay for the national health care might cause people who support for free health care system to change their mind. Logically, it might be suggested that the government can solve these problems by increasing in taxation in order to finance the national health care, but it simultaneously damages the benefits of somebody who have to pay more money, and will these people still be happy to do such thing? This problem can be easily to be realized to be the same as what Jacob tries to explain that the government cannot enact laws, rules or regulations that interfere with people’s right to pursuit their own interests.William also contends that free health care will help to increase economic productivity for the reasons that good health care can help people live longer and healthier to be able to contribute more to the economy as well as improve the workforce of the country.
Besides, he also asserts that the right to health care makes economic sense since many illnesses can be identified and prevented before they move into the serious stage which causes people to die and needs a huge amount of money to cure.William seems to have overlooked some disadvantages of free health care system. Addition to tax, the government might cut its expenditures, such as educational spending and transfer payment. A decrease in educational expenditure can lead both rich and poor people to face some problems. Rich people react to the decline of educational quality of the public schools by sending their children to private schools, which costs them much more money.
Poor families, on the other hand, have to accept that their children study in the schools having poor quality or even worse they are not able to pay for their children to go to such schools. These problems will inevitably result in producing less competitive workforce for the country.In conclusion, William offers some reasons to support for the idea that free health care needs to be the new direction for America, including being a civil right, helping to increase economic productivity and economic sense. Notwithstanding, William seems to ignore some drawbacks as well as the human rights for some particular Americans. In contrast, Jacob is likely to have a more comprehensive perspective on the rights the Founding Fathers believed in.
It had better to let people have the rights to choose and pay for their own health care service depending on their financial situation.
