Soc 490; week due

                                                          Healthcare; a topic always in the spot light

      Is healthcare a right or a privilege? A debate that will always be a hot topic now since President Barrack Obama is changing the way it works. As for myself I think that it is a privilege but, like a tree at the beginning of a storm, I am beginning to sway from side to side which opposing side is truly the right one. If you are able to understand the view of an opponent’s argument, you can not only be able to better understand your own view but improve what you know about the topic in general. As for healthcare being a privilege these are the reasons why I think that the opponents believe it is a right.

     The Bible, one of the most, if not greatest, influential books in the world, tells us to love thy neighbor and to treat others as our brothers or sisters. Viewing healthcare as a right, follows this way of living by treating everyone the same, giving everyone the right to get healthcare. In “Gaudium et Spes”, it give us many reasons to believe that healthcare is a right and that everyone is entitled to it. On page 23 “God, Who has fatherly concern for everyone, has willed that all men should constitute one family and treat one another in a spirit of brotherhood”, or on page 25, there are reasons everywhere as to why healthcare is a right “the common good”, “general welfare of the entire human family”, or “rights and duties are universal and inviolable….made available to all men everything necessary for leading a life truly human. Such as food, clothing, and shelter; the right to choose a state of life freely and to found a family, the right to education….”. All this tells us clear as the air we breathe that healthcare is a right just like food and clothing or education. Making healthcare universal is the claimed to be the best solution for the common good of America by promoting the general welfare of the human race or as what the opposing side would claim. Also in Gaudium on page 27, “respect and love ought to be extended also to those who think or act differently than we do in social, political and even religious matters”. So giving healthcare to everyone is showing love and respect for people of all backgrounds and lifestyles.

     So since Healthcare being a right is what seems like a probable solution, fair to all and now going to be in full effect by our reelected President Obama, all citizens everywhere will have be given the right to healthcare. Citizens in all counties of Ohio will be able to get healthcare and go to hospitals and get the right treatment. For instance the Cleveland clinic in Cuyahoga County will be able and be made to treat everyone, not only people with insurance. The residents of Cuyahoga County will be able to get the care they need at the Cleveland clinic and promote their well-being, right? Wrong, it is wrong because when giving people access to the best healthcare does not mean they will use it or if a person lives an unhealthy lifestyle, living next to a hospital will not make that person healthy. Living next to one of the best hospitals around does not mean the people around it are healthy; it is all about your lifestyle, economic status and, genetic factors/illnesses. When people do live close to a hospital or live in the county of the best hospital around just means that those people have easier access to it or could reach a hospital faster. The economic factor could be the big issue as to why people in Cuyahoga County are not all healthy and living in range to the Cleveland Clinic. If a person is financially instable, how are they going to afford to pay for healthcare at the Cleveland clinic?

     Healthcare is not free even with Obama’s Universal healthcare plan or Obama care, if the citizens of America are unable to pay insurance premiums, hospital bills, car payments, groceries or anything else how are they going to pay for insurance? Take away from the people who can? Bring the rest of society down instead of raising the other half of society, balancing society. Yes, everyone will have the right to get healthcare, be able to get the care that they need or help they might deserve but that still does not make healthcare free. There is nothing in life that s free except for the air we breathe, Food stamps or government housing, public education or private education, private insurance of government insurance, someone has to pay for it and that someone is the people who can afford only the bare necessities or those who can live comfortably. We are going to be paying insurance for those who cannot pay for it; there is no doubt or question about that fact because we already pay for their government assistance, like food stamps, medical card, government housing or unemployment. Now, the real question is who’s going to pay for us when we, the middle class, can no longer pay for ourselves?