Faced with an “obesity epidemic“, that has dramatic consequences for medical costs, pundits have proposed different solutions, ranging from excluding obesity from health insurance, government-run prevention campaigns, higher taxes on junk food, or higher premiums for fat people.
The possibility of greater government involvement in medicine with the passing of ObamaCare puts this debate in a new light. If the government decides who gets money for medical treatment, the question of whether fat people deserve medical treatment will become a political issue.
The question of who "deserves" treatment is only conceivable in a welfare state. In a free, capitalist society, people are able to allocate their wealth according to their judgment of the merit of their own and other’s health, including the degree to which they are culpable for their condition. However, there is no rational way to allocate property taken by force.
Does Jake, who became paralyzed because he liked extreme sports, or Kate, who has lung cancer because she is a smoker, or Mary, who has problems because has a tendency towards obesity which she does not try to control with diet or exercise, or Sue, who is dying from old age, and whose life might be slightly extended at tremendous cost deserve my money?
Once the idea that theft is justified because others need something is accepted, there is no objective way to decide which group is more "deserving" or which values are most "needed." There is no way to make moral evaluations when "need" trumps justice and morality.
Justice and merit are moral concepts. To "deserve" someone’s property, is to have a moral claim to it. We create a claim to someone’s property when we engage in voluntary transactions -- such as labor for wages, or goods for services, child care by choosing to bear children, or paying for injury if it is due to our neglect. But to claim that someone "deserves" our wealth merely by the fact of them being alive implies that some human beings have a moral claim on the life and values of others. That is a form of slavery. A modern, democratic, and egalitarian form of slavery, but slavery nonetheless.
For someone to receive medical treatment, someone else must first create the wealth to pay for it. In a free society, people produce values voluntarily, and exchange them to mutual benefit. But the premise that someone has "a right to healthcare" means "a right to" seize values by force from those who produce them and give them to those who did not earn them. In such a slave society, people exist and produce values by permission, to the degree in which those in power find them useful. Whether their values are seized directly, such as in socialism, or are nominally theirs but controlled by the state, such as in the fascist state our healthcare system is in, is irrelevant.
Some "moderates" argue that sick people "deserve" medical care when their misfortune is not their fault. But why should it matter whether they are responsible for their condition? People desire all kinds of values, whether cars, iPhones, shoes, friends, plastic surgery, or a long life. Sometimes they succeed in gaining those values, and sometimes they fail -- whether it is due to a character flaw, ignorance, or simply bad luck. But whatever the reason for their trouble, why does their misfortune give them a right to steal those values from an innocent third party?
If it is impossible to allocate socialized medicine objectively, how is it allocated? It is simple -- the group that ends up getting the loot is the one which has the most guns. In a democracy, where ballots are the bullets, the biggest, most corrupt, and politically-connected group wins. The implied message of their "awareness" campaigns is "my gang has more guns than yours." The monstrosity of the welfare state is that the more virtuous and productive a person is, the more of his life and values he is forced to sacrifice, and the more unproductive and needy he is, the more he is rewarded for it. Like all forms of statism, medical socialism punishes virtue and rewards vice.
Comments
Brilliant article - thank you! Well said.
well written, but terrible and illogical
Exactly. If you don't want to treat a certain segment of our population for the results of willingly , then those segments should be defined and exempted from paying INTO the system. Somehow I never hear those who don't want to treat these people out of fairness to other recipients alarmed about the fairness of making them pay but not allowing them to collect.
Then there's the whole issue of politically correct high-risk populations. Those who want to shut the gates on smokers, drinkers, fatties, and bungee jumpers never seem to want to do the same to active homosexuals, a population willingly engaging in a behavior that leads to a higher risk of an illness that’s VERY expensive to treat. Now read carefully, I’m not taking the opposite inconsistent position, that it WOULD be fair to allow homosexuals to pay in and then be denied treatment. I’m just pointing out that the proponents of restrictions are inconsistent PC hypocrites.
(cont'd) But really, all this paradoxical situation does is show that government shouldn't have a high degree of involvement in our lives. Every time they do, these hard choices arise. The government intrudes in our life in one area without invitation, then uses that involvement to justify further intrusion.
How long before denying treat to "undesirables" turns into helping them "along the way"?
I did go ahead and share this- it is an interesting take on a hard question.
(Also I subscribed, I really like your articles, and shared it!)
Got something to say?
Examiner.com is looking for writers, photographers, and videographers to join the fastest growing group of local insiders. If you are interested in growing your online rep apply to be an Examiner today!