What I Think About It

Sometimes I find one that says just what I think.

Memo To Foes Of Health Reform: Repudiate The Morality Of Need

By Yaron Brooks and Don Watkins Posted 12/28/2009 06:47 PM ET

In the run-up to the Senate's passage of the health care bill, opponents of ObamaCare denounced it as an unprecedented expansion of government control over medicine.

They warned of the proven consequences of government medicine, pointing to the rationing that occurs in Canada and Europe.

They pointed to the low cancer survival rates in places like Britain. They cited statistic after statistic showing that ObamaCare will raise costs and lower health care quality in America.

They were right — yet it looks like Obama will get his bill. And even if the Republicans are able to pull off an upset, there is no question that over the coming years government control over health will continue to grow.

Why? Consider the history of government involvement in health care.

In the 1960s there was a perception that some elderly were not receiving adequate health care. To meet this need, Congress passed Medicare. The same concern was voiced about the poor. To meet their need, Congress passed Medicaid.

The same concern was voiced about those too destitute (or too irresponsible) to buy health insurance, and in the '80s Congress passed the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, forcing emergency rooms to treat anyone who needed medical attention, regardless of their ability to pay.

The same concern was voiced about parents who were too well off for Medicare, but who nevertheless couldn't meet their children's health care needs, and in the late '90s Congress passed the State Children's Health Insurance Program.

The message is clear: If you have a need, you are entitled to have it fulfilled at others' expense.

The reason we continue to move toward socialized medicine is that everyone — including the opponents of socialized medicine — grants its basic moral premise: that need generates an entitlement.

So long as that principle goes unchallenged, government intervention in medicine will continue growing, as each new pressure group asserts its need and lobbies for its entitlement, until finally the government takes responsibility for fulfilling everyone's medical needs by socializing the health care system outright.

Some believe you can stop this process midstream: The government will intervene only to help those in dire circumstances while otherwise leaving people responsible for their own health care. But that's an illusion. If need entitles one to the wealth and effort of others, then there is no logical reason why the government should restrict help to some small subset of the "needy," and refuse to help the rest.

The only way to effectively oppose socialized health care is to reject the morality of need in favor of a genuinely American alternative. According to the American ideal, — we are independent individuals with inalienable rights to support our own lives and happiness by our own efforts.

That means taking responsibility for your own medical needs, just as you take responsibility for your grocery shopping and car payments. It means no one can claim that his need entitles him to your time, effort, or wealth.

Where is the willingness to defend this ideal by saying, "Your health care is your responsibility — and if you truly cannot afford the care you need, then you must ask for private charity — not pick your neighbor's pocket to pay for it"?

Opponents of ObamaCare object that it is "too expensive," that the proposed bills are "too long," that Congress is moving "too fast" — conceding all the while that the goal of providing people with unearned health care is righteous.

But if forcing some Americans to provide unearned health care for others is noble, then is it any wonder that America keeps moving toward socialized medicine? Is it any wonder that, while Republicans loudly oppose Democratic attempts to expand government control over health care, they do not challenge the endless need-based interventions that already exist — and instead push for their own need-based programs (such as Bush's prescription drug entitlement)?

Those who truly want to fight against socialized medicine in America must realize that it's time to drop the morality of need and proudly say: I am not my brother's health care provider.

• Brook is the president of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, a division of the Ayn Rand Institute that promotes the philosophy of the author of "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead."

• Watkins is an analyst at the center.