Reforming How We Care for Health

Without a doubt, the most common relevant discussion being held across the United States at present is that regarding health care. A common defense of further and deeper government involvement is that health care needs reform, and it is a human right. Health care does, to anyone paying attention, obviously need to be reformed, however this term does not refer to a particular method and should not be used obliquely in reference to any piece of legislation.

So is health care a right? If so what becomes of health care providers? In my experience a health care provider is someone who has invested the time, energy and money to gain the knowledge of caring for health, so do we have a right to pursue access to their knowledge, or to attain that knowledge ourselves? Do we have a right to accessing the functional application of their knowledge? If so, what happens when they do not wish to, or if they require renumeration to compensate for their time and effort, and get out of the debts they may have incurred in procuring that knowledge? One does not pay for a right.

In order for health care to be a right, it would need to be instilled in us on birth, it would need to be innate and internally self-sufficient. However I was not innately aware of what a tracheotomy was, or when to perform it. As a small child I could not tell you how to treat a burn, or suture a wound. But I did have the capacity to learn these things through research, and what those who had the liberty to do such had documented. I had life, and liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and that is what creates the ability to care for health.

Health care is not ethereal, it is concrete actions on the part of all parties, done on an individual basis. Persons make an effort to avoid injury based on their knowledge of the environment, and to maintain optimum health when they are  responsible; knowledgable persons in the matters of health beyond the norm care for them when they made a mistake, or something out of their control happened. Those persons are then compensated in some way, so that they can continue doing that, but also maintaining their life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, so that they can continue to grow as people, and help a new generation learn to care even deeper.

Health care reform begins with ourselves, through knowledge, personal moderation, charity to those in need, of proper appreciation and support of those who excel in particular knowledge to help us.