Is Health Care a Right or a Moral Responsibility?

With landmark reforms and scrutiny at the highest levels of government over the past few years, one thing is certain. America and her people are taking a good hard look at health care. It would be hard to argue that few people are unaffected by the use and access to this precious, lifesaving resource. But one thing has become apparent in the debates over the use of this resource; it seems that the national opinion about this resource is fractured into the competing ideas of many different groups. It seems that America has long been trying to answer the question about how to address this topic for quite some time, perhaps unto its very founding. So, to understand how we view this resource, we must first ask ourselves, is health care a right, a privilege or a responsibility?

The first step in answering this question must by necessity be to define the parameters. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a rite as something that a person is or should be morally or legally allowed to have, get, or do(“Merriam-Webster”). This same source defines a privilege as a right or benefit that is given to some people and not to others. (“Merriam-Webster”) A responsibility is defined as a duty or task that you are required or expected to do or as something that you should do because it is morally right, legally required, etc. (“Merriam-Webster”). Now that it has been made clear what each of these points entail, we must now ask, how shall health care be labeled in respect to these dichotomous ideals?

Health care as a Right

Although we have a rudimentary understanding of what constitutes a right from the definition we established from the dictionary, a deeper understanding necessitates a deeper conversation. In America, we hold to two sep...

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