Health Care – Right or Privilege? (Editorial)

Health care — is it a right or a privilege?

Whatever happens regarding the American Health Care Act — the Republican “repeal and replace” of Obamacare — health care in the United States will remain an issue.

At an Arkansas Business meeting last week with leaders in Arkansas’ health care sector, they affirmed what we’ve said previously: The philosophical question of whether health care is something every American is entitled to or something every American must earn underlies all discussion of how best to provide it.

If health care is a right, then lawmakers should craft policies that ensure all citizens receive it. And yes, it might look a lot like “socialized medicine,” but Medicare is a form of socialized medicine and few Americans spurn it when they’re of age to qualify. Or it might involve a system that is a mix of universal coverage and public-private health care that retains a role for private insurers, as is found in France.

If health care is a privilege, something earned, then maybe we need to repeal Medicare and Medicaid and revert to a free market system in which Americans pay when they can and depend on charity when they can’t.

Obamacare — the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act — is a messy, unwieldy system that tries to provide health care as if it’s a right while deferring to private-sector solutions when possible. And though the GOP had seven years to devise the better, cheaper health insurance that would cover everyone, as promised by President Trump, its first effort will leave more Americans uninsured and do nothing to control the cost.

Until that question — right or privilege? — is answered, elected officials and the health care industry in the United States will be flailing around in the dark, lurching from one policy proposal to another, perpetuating uncertainty and confusion and benefiting few.