BrianGarst.com

Lost in the financial hysteria was a very important question asked of the two candidates during the second debate. Brokaw queried, “Is health care in America a privilege, a right, or a responsibility?”

McCain’s response was reasonable, though not profound:

I think it’s a responsibility, in this respect, in that we should have available and affordable health care to every American citizen, to every family member. And with the plan that — that I have, that will do that.

But government mandates I — I’m always a little nervous about. But it is certainly my responsibility. It is certainly small-business people and others, and they understand that responsibility. American citizens understand that. Employers understand that.

Obama’s reply, in addition to being a rambling excuse to hit on numerous irrelevant talking points, revealed a fundamental misunderstanding common to the left on the nature of rights:

Well, I think it should be a right for every American. In a country as wealthy as ours, for us to have people who are going bankrupt because they can’t pay their medical bills — for my mother to die of cancer at the age of 53 and have to spend the last months of her life in the hospital room arguing with insurance companies because they’re saying that this may be a pre-existing condition and they don’t have to pay her treatment, there’s something fundamentally wrong about that.”

The problem with Obama’ reply is that, in carving out a “right” for something like health care, he is creating a burden on others and violating actual rights. In order to supply this right to a product, Obama must ignore property rights and demand a specific allocation of resources that a respect for people’s property rights might not produce.

For a more thorough discussion on why health care is not a right, see my previous post on the subject.

Barack Obama Election '08 John McCain