In yesterday's post, I highlighted David Sirota's essay on the selfishness of them what wants to block health care reform.
Commenter Liberty, who did include the caveat "Ignore me--I'm bitter today," raised the question of whether demanding free health care wasn't equally selfish:
"Here's the thing... "me first" is a really obnoxious attitude, but no more obnoxious than, "Well I /deserve/ health care (food, housing, electricity, clothing, high speed internet, etc.) for *free* just because I exist!"
To me, that's just a different sort of "me first". "
As it happens, I've been thinking about this question for a long time. Back in October '08, I read this post by Mistress Matisse about whether health care can really be considered a human right.
Her main point (and her blog is only for grownups plz kthxbai):
"When I think of rights, I think of things that I have, inside me, which should not be taken away from me by any outside force. They are things that are integral to me being a human being. I don’t inherently have health care, or food or shelter. I must create some situation in which I get them."
I thought this was nicely-stated and thought-provoking. In that post, she invited people to email her with their opinions on the subject, but by the time I had thought it through sufficiently to know what to say, the moment was past.
So I'll say it here.
We don't inherently have health care...but we do inherently have health. But the tricky thing about health is, we can't always maintain it ourselves. On a regular basis, we need other people to step in and fix it (our health) for us. This may mean visiting a shaman if we lived in Cahokia, a leech specialist if we lived in 18th century Europe, or an otolaryngology clinic if we live in Poughkeepsie. Whatever, if there's no way for us to get at those resources, we will (a) have a radically diminished life compared to others around us and (b) we will almost certainly die sooner than we would otherwise have had to.
In that sense, I believe that health care passes Matisse's litmus test, albeit indirectly. It is a means of preventing our inherent rights from being taken away from us by forces beyond our control.
For example, those of us who are American citizens live in a country in which our right to pursue "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" shall not be infringed upon unless we've been stripped of any or all of them by due process in a court of law.
And it is not possible to pursue any of those three without our health.
So, I don't think it's "me first" to demand affordable or even free health care. I think it's totally legitimate.
All bets are off when it comes to high-speed internet, though :)
