In recent months the US as a whole has seemed to become more polarized and vociferous in objecting to or supporting a system of nationalized health care for all citizens, and under some propositions all those present in the United States, regardless of status.

Most lately I have encountered the argument that health care is a "basic human right," and thus should rightly be provided by the federal government.

I see a profound problem with this argument, as the providing and receiving of health care differs widely from our other given rights in one very key way: The receiving of health care, by necessity, requires the taking of labor from another individual.

If one person has the right to health care and this right is to be enforced by the federal government, then the onus is on a second individual to provide it. Unless we unreasonably assume that every individual who has this right will be trained as physicians so that they may serve themselves, we have a second individual involved.

Based on our somewhat unique experiment in this country an individual is free to choose their own interests, their own career, and are free to choose where and when to practice the skills they have learned. There are, of course, oversights placed on almost all professions, but these are an extension of contract law, to insure that the consumer receives the service they are purchasing without fraud or injury. No individual is guaranteed either success or a market in the chosen profession or physical area of work.

From the assumption that an individual has a right to health care it follows that another party has the requirement to provide the service. If the government chooses to enforce this right they commit defiance of another, more immediate, human right: The freedom from slavery. In the even that we guarantee health care as a basic human right, and for whatever reason no one chooses to practice medicine, what then? Do we declare that a certain set of people must learn the trade, and must provide the service to others? That sound like the soft slavery of socialism to me, such as practiced in Germany, where the government chooses your profession, where you will practice it, and allows or disallows your movements within the country so as your mandatory services are available for those who have a "right" to receive it.

It is hard for us to imagine in the US, accustomed as we are to our individual independence, to have the government declare what your profession will be, where you will live, who your clients will be, if you can move, and even if you can quit.

It may sound nice and friendly to provide health care to all and sundry. How could one possibly argue against making sure everyone is taken care of? It's easy, when the alternative is professional slavery. One persons rights can never rob another of those same rights. We cannot allow entitlement to become rights that turn the providers into slaves.

Update: I have found an excellent article on this subject by Leonard Peikoff, Phd. Here are some excerpts and a link to the full text:

"Observe that all legitimate rights have one thing in common: they are rights to action, not to rewards from other people. The American rights impose no obligations on other people, merely the negative obligation to leave you alone. The system guarantees you the chance to work for what you want -- not to be given it without effort by somebody else.

The right to life, e.g., does not mean that your neighbors have to feed and clothe you; it means you have the right to earn your food and clothes yourself, if necessary by a hard struggle, and that no one can forcibly stop your struggle for these things or steal them from you if and when you have achieved them. In other words: you have the right to act, and to keep the results of your actions, the products you make, to keep them or to trade them with others, if you wish. But you have no right to the actions or products of others, except on terms to which they voluntarily agree.

To take one more example: the right to the pursuit of happiness is precisely that: the right to the pursuit -- to a certain type of action on your part and its result -- not to any guarantee that other people will make you happy or even try to do so. Otherwise, there would be no liberty in the country: if your mere desire for something, anything, imposes a duty on other people to satisfy you, then they have no choice in their lives, no say in what they do, they have no liberty, they cannot pursue their happiness. Your "right" to happiness at their expense means that they become rightless serfs, i.e., your slaves. Your right to anything at others' expense means that they become rightless."

I encourage you strongly to read the rest of the text, which was the subject of a speech given on Hillary Clinton's health care reform plan in 1993. The points therein are still extremely salient today:

[link]

This also illustrates that the fight against the encroachment of socialism will have to be fought over and over again, as long as people keep coming up with the notion that it is good and proper to "vote themselves money" (as loosely attributed to B. Franklin) and couch that entitlement in friendly and noble terms of doing good for the less fortunate.

I encourage comments, whether you agree or disagree with the above writing. I'm happy to engage in reasoned debate.