Health - Care
P. Lynn Murphy
SOC 101
Mr. Joe Scahill
December 15, 2008
Abstract
U. S. health care costs too much, and the cost of paying for health care can be blames for unacceptably high corporate overhead, record numbers of uninsured, and increasing demands on the federal and state governments to limit entitlement programs. Access to health care will continue to be an issue in the United States unless the federal government determines that health care is a fundamental right for all individuals regardless of citizen status. (Gunnar, William P. (2008)
Health Care
The concept of a human right promotes the idea that each person is entitled to have something or to be free from something. It commonly reflects the basic conviction that each human being has special and great significance. While this conviction is not necessarily religious in nature, it receives special emphasis in theological traditions such as Christianity, Judaism, and Islam (Kilner, 1992; Zoloth; Rahman)
Individuals Claim to Healthcare
Negative and positive rights are frequently distinguished, as are moral and legal rights. Negative (or liberty) rights guarantee freedom from certain types of interference with the pursuit of one’s interests. Positive (or material) rights guarantee access to important services and goods. Accordingly, a right to protection from anything that is seriously harmful to one’s health is a negative right; a right to receive certain forms of healthcare is a positive right. Whereas moral rights involve claims about what one ought to have on ethical grounds, legal rights involve claims about what one is actually entitled to by law. Whether everyone has an ethically justifiable right to healthcare is debated in the United States, yet Medicare legislation confers a legal right to healthcare on the country’s elderly people. (Kilner, John F. 2004)
Differing views
In light of such...