As with most legal questions, the answer is a resounding “it depends.” In one respect, there is a right to health care in this country. Various federal and state statutes mandate the provision of emergency health care even if the patient is unable to pay. Many more anti-discrimination laws focus on the health care industry to the extent that many doctors and hospitals practically take any patient that walks through the door. In this respect, there is a right to health care in the sense that anyone who needs it can procure it free from arbitrary objections.

On the other hand, there is not an absolute right to health care in the way it exists in other countries with socialized medicine schemes. With the exception of emergency treatment, medical care is a market commodity that cannot be gotten without paying the price. In this sense, there is no right to health care in the same way that there is no right to a steak dinner; you can get it if you pay for it, but you are not entitled to it in any ontological sense.

The question of whether there should be a right to health care has a similarly equivocal answer. Should we adopt a socialized, government-funded health care system as certain presidential candidates proposed during the recently-completed election cycle? If we are speaking about an absolute right, this is the way we must frame the question because it is the government we look to to protect such rights and the government is the only entity large enough to guarantee such a right. This question, of course, implicates other questions which have at their root foundational socio/religious concerns such as the existence and origin of “rights,” as well as the issue of the proper role of government.

As I see it, an absolute right to health care, if there is one, must be found in the nature of mankind as a whole. The common rights we generally recognize (as described in the Constitution) are bestowed by our Creator (as the Constitution itself recognizes). If this be the case, any additional rights we might want to recognize would have to be rooted in our nature as creatures. In other words, we generally recognize that we have a God-given right to live and that our right to life may not be infringed arbitrarily. Does “life” incorporate “health?” Are we entitled to whatever medical care we consider necessary to maintain the highest quality of life? What about minimum health care necessary merely to sustain life?

I have not yet arrived at a firm conclusion, but my inclination is to answer in the negative on both counts. The simple fact is that everybody will die eventually and any improvement of the quality of life or even sustaining of life is more than what we are entitled to. It is a struggle to maintain this position when considering the ease with which many deadly conditions can be cured or corrected. In this respect, we all have an interest in ensuring that health care, while not an entitlement, is something reasonably accessible to all.

I tend to believe that deregulation and reliance on the free market will have the effect of putting health care back within financial reach of most Americans. Of course, subjecting health care to market forces presumes that it is not an absolute right. However, I believe that recognizing something not to be a right could have the counterintuitive effect of making it more easily attainable.

It also means that the product received will often be closely related to the price paid, which necessarily means that those with less resources will not normally be able to receive the same products as those with greater resources. This is true. But it also provides opportunities for compassion, both on the part of health care providers and on the part of those who have a special burden to fight poverty and its effects. And I believe that the free market has plenty of room for compassion.

What do you think?