A "Right" to Health Care?

How would you deal with the more fundamental statist argument that underlies this socialized approach to medicine? The argument goes that “Everyone has a right to health care, and it is the duty of the federal government to provide health care.”

I’d question on a presuppositional basis, first, where does this right emanate, and how do we know that we have it. I don’t think I could get an adequate Biblical answer. Secondly, it treats health care as something that is applied to people, like clothing to our backs, or roofs over our heads. Health is something that is intimately tied up with what we think, and therefore what we do. It is not something to be applied to people as a stamp is applied to an envelope. And the system we are headed for treats health care as some sort of commodity, which it is absolutely not, and cannot be…. It can’t be provided like a commodity. People that say they have a right to health care could say that they have a right to a certain amount of money, without engaging in any of the activities to acquire and preserve and increase it. It’s preposterous. It’s not going to be handed out that way. Which is why I am confident it is going to fail. A lot earlier in this country than in the more cohesive countries of Europe.


Excerpt from an interview with Dr. Terrell