Is Health Care a Right?

Very much in the news for quite a while has been the question of how to pay for health care in America. And true to moralist form, many people on opposing sides have invoked morality – as if to say, God is on our side. The particular form of morality typically invoked is rights. Rights as opposed to right (as in right and wrong), although the terms are cognate. Thus, supporters of universal care will often claim that health care is a moral right, which is to say that it would be wrong for society to deny it to anyone and it is obligatory for society to provide it to everyone.

But as an amoralist, who does not believe there is such a thing as morality, I consider the answer to the question “Is Health Care a Right?” to be “No.” In fact it is doubly “No.” For the question could be either moral or legal, and in both cases the answer is “No.” The answer to the question “Is Health Care a Moral Right” is “No” because there are no moral rights. One might as well be asking, “Does Zeus Want Everyone to Have Health Care?” The answer to that question is also “No,” simply because there is no Zeus. But if the question were then conceived as “Is Health Care a Legal Right?” the answer would again be “No,” at least in the United States. That’s why there is a debate; the law of the land does not yet specify that everyone is entitled to health care, and even the entitlements currently prescribed are in continual jeopardy as I write.

Even if one were talking about a legal right, morality might be thought to be lurking in the background inevitably. After all, could not one hold that health care ought to be a legal right? Here the “ought” would signify something other than the law – presumably a moral requirement. But this too I, as an amoralist, reject. Yet I do support health care for all. So how can I articulate, or even think, my position?

I believe the answer is very simple and natural. The bottom line (of what is real and not mythical in this case) is that I have a desire that everyone have a legal right to health care, and hence also a desire that enough other members of my society share the first desire in order to bring about its fulfillment (by voting for appropriate legislators, etc.). But how can I justify that desire? Well, I don’t think I need to in the moral sense of justification, of course. But I would be happy to explain what caused me to have the desires I do, insofar as I know this; and, more to the point, I would be happy to provide my reasons, which is to say the causes I am aware of and that might have a similar effect on you.

For example, my desire that everyone have health care may have been partially caused by a number of compelling stories I have read about family tragedies in the United States due to our not having universal health care; and I could then wield these stories in an effort to persuade you as well. I could say this was my reason: “I don’t want people to suffer needlessly like this” and hope your heartstrings would be similarly attuned to respond as mine did. There might also be a selfish component: “This could happen to any one of us, to you or me.” And so on. Note that there is no need to invoke morality in this process.

So instead of asking “Is Health Care a Right?” I would suggest asking, “What Considerations Might Lead One to Desire Health Care for All?” Of course an opponent would then be free to ask (and answer) the opposite question. Then each citizen who has been exposed to both sets of considerations would be left to make up his or her mind, that is to say, be moved to support or oppose relevant legislation. That’s the way the world goes ’round. No deus ex machina, whether divine or moral, will descend from the skies to set us straight about this. It’s up to us.

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