Okay, let's assume that everyone agrees it is wrong to have the quality of goods and services determined by how much money you have. Heath care definitely falls under the category of services, so what is the alternative to health care based on the patient's (customer's) financial resources?
Unless the goverment taxes the hell out of us, any "free" health care program will still have very limited resources when it comes to major operations requiring specialists, especially organ transplants depending on very limited organ donor supplies. So, who gets the priority? First come, first serve? Who decides who lives and dies? The government or some goverment appointed doctor? How many people are going to be willing to become doctors once it becomes a goverment run profession with relatively low pay compared to the sacrifices required to become a doctor (like the military)? What will be the quality of these doctors?
If you want the best health care in the world, you don't go to a country where the health care is provided to everyone for free. You come here where the doctors are rewarded financially for their exceptional skills.
While Rush's choice of words makes it sound harsh and evil, I still think the greed-driven capitalist framework our country was founded on is the best system for distributing limited resources such as good health care. Good health care is not a right, it is a luxury. The fact that a child of some poor family with no health care coverage will die because they cannot afford surgery while some rich fat old man gets his third heart bypass surgery is an inherent part of the system we live in.
So the best solution is to your own health care problems is to find a way to be financially successful, which is usually good for the ecomomy as well as you (basic capitalist theory
). If you cannot do this for some reason (lazy? lack of talents?
), feel free to become a citizen of one of the many countries that offers "free" health care.
The idea of government here is that it protects your right to pursue happiness, not to guarantee or protect your happiness. It is your responsibility as an individual to make the decisions and take the actions necessary to be happy.
P.S. I hope that this country didn't just waste over 40 years of defense money winning the Cold War only to decide that it is better to be red than dead. I would rather die because I can't afford health care than give up the American way.
