PrintJanuary 6, 2011
Give Me Liberty or Give Me Health
In the December 15 issue of America's most prestigious medical pubication, The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Eric Friedman and Eli Adashi write, "In passing The Affordable Care Act, the United States took a giant, if partial, step toward joining nations wherein the right to health constitutes an inalienable moral and legal right." Notice how the authors replace the term health care with just the term health. As a medical doctor, I strongly disagree that health is or should be a human right. First and foremost, as a supporter of individual rights and constitutionally limited government, "the right to health" is far too nebulous and necessarily vests the government with unlimited power. "What is this right [to health] that engenders these bold claims?" write Friedman and Adashi: It is an assertion of the responsibility of governments to strive for ‘the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.'...(Read Full Article)
