Health Care a Human Right?

Below is another excerpt from a special address by Howard Hyde to the Southern California Republican Women and Men, March 29, 2014

-----------------
The morning after the end of the CPAC conference I received a polite email from a man who had given me $20 for a copy of my book even though I had only been asking for $8 and was in some cases giving them away, because that late in the conference I didn't want to have a surplus to carry home in my luggage. The email began with some pleasantries and then came this: "Mr. Hyde, Many of the errors of your book stem from your lack of knowledge of healthcare from the inside."
Oh. Wasn't quite expecting a comment like that from a CPAC attendee, but fine.

For the record, I know a little bit about medicine from the inside, being married to a physician in private practice who not only has to deal with the regulatory assault on her profession in general, but the bureaucratic blindness and prejudice against her specialty in particular. But we'll set that aside for now.

I read on. He detailed his impressive accomplishments as a doctor, researcher and fat grant recipient. Among other things he said, "I describe myself as:
1. A social liberal -- essentially a libertarian position
2. A fiscal conservative
3. A theological fundamentalist -- this trumps number one
My practice (see website) is among the most transformative in the USA."
And then the kicker: "I believe that healthcare is a human right."

I consider this important to address because we have someone here who is not a low-information voter but a very intelligent and successful Medical professional, who believes that healthcare is a 'human right'.

Health care a 'Right'
Rights mean freedom from violent or coercive power, especially government power; freedom from being told what to do and what not to do.
Nothing can be a right which cannot be perfectly reciprocal between and among any and all individuals. I have a right that you do not murder me. I have a right not to be robbed, defrauded, raped, persecuted or conspired against by you. And you have exactly the same rights with respect to me. There is no contradiction or conflict between us having the same rights at the same time.
But if one person is to have an absolute right to be given something, then someone else has to be forced to give it to that person whether he wants to or not. Everyone cannot have the same right at the same time. If I have a right to health care, then you have to give it to me. But then that is a violation of your right to to your own life and property, including healthcare. And if I am equally obligated to provide the means of healthcare or anything else to you, then that is either a cancellation or an irreconcilable contradiction. Your right not to be murdered by me in no way violates my liberty. But my right to the goods and services produced by others against their will is my right to rob, which is a violation of other's more fundamental rights. They cannot coexist.

To say that health care is a right is equivalent to saying that a Mercedes is a right and that every citizen must be given one. For one thing, What we call Healthcare in 2014 is very different and far more advanced than anything known as Healthcare a century ago, a generation ago or even 10 years ago. One day the most entry-level automobile within the means of an entry-level factory worker will be as good as an advanced Mercedes is today, just as today's standard features of power steering, automatic transmission, airbags and antilock brakes were once available only in luxury editions reserved for the rich. The poor in America do not drive Model T's. If healthcare had been declared a right in 1950 in America, then everyone today might have access to healthcare as the state of the art was in 1950, but nobody would ever have had 2010 medicine as America achieved it under the greater liberty and lesser government intervention that existed here relative to all other nations.

If I encounter a sick person in the street, or if I become aware of someone in my social circle, work, my family, or in the church who is sick or otherwise in need of Healthcare Services which he or she cannot afford, then you may say that I have a moral obligation to help that person if I am at all able. But that is wholly different from saying that we must construct a massive salaried, pensioned and unaccountable bureaucratic army in Washington DC, commanded by elite politically connected power-brokers, to administer a system that overrides and supersedes the knowledge, power and decisions of patients, families and doctors in private practice. Moral obligation, informed by ethical principles, moved by persuasion and ultimately arbitrated by God or Providence, is completely different and incompatible with governmental coercion via taxation and the threat of imprisonment at gunpoint.
To the contrary it is both futile and immoral to violate the liberty of citizens in the pursuit of a 'greater good', for there is no greater good. It is precisely that liberty which has produced the most effective healthcare system in the world. I remind you that people who have no insurance at all in America have a statistically much better chance as to their actual health outcomes that those covered by the federal program that has targeted the poor for almost a half century already: Mediaid. Why don't we get that one right, or put it out of its misery, before granting orders of magnitude more power to the federal government?
Liberals object that charity is inadequate. But charity is only inadequate to well-educated people who want a high-paid professional career doing 'good'. Americans are the most generous people on earth, voluntarily donating more of their time, talent and treasure (at all income levels) than any other nation on earth, especially conservative Americans, and especially religious Americans.
Charity then is not a failure; it is a priceless gift to be cherished and cultivated for which we make no apology.
So charity is a real and important part of the solution. And what are the other parts? Thank you for asking, because this is what we need to be talking about. Everyone including liberals and union workers know the nightmare stories by now. With 38 un-legal delays and counting, the Affordable Care Act is a dead letter. What we need to saturate the airwaves with now is a discussion of the ALTERNATIVES to socialized medicine and to the inevitable resurgent leftist push for Single Payer.

The alternatives are, in no particular order:

• Promote competition across state lines.
  
• Eliminate the mandates
  
• Repeal the Obamacare taxes
  
• Boost Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) and Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs)
  
• Reform the tort liability casino (as Texas has done, very successfully).
  Allow all medical expenses and premiums to be 100% tax deductible for everyone, independent of any employment relationship.
  
• Allow physicians to take a tax deduction or credit for services rendered pro bono.
  
• Eliminate government subsidies for unhealthy products like sugar, corn syrup and tobacco (yes, we still subsidize tobacco).
  
• Abolish the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), a.k.a. The Death Panel.
  
• Reform Medicaid to make it better than having no insurance at all, or pull the plug on it too.
  
• Honor the medical license. Doctors know medicine and their patients; Washington bureaucrats do not."
  

While I would like to see all of these policies implemented immediately, the good news is there's no reason they can't each be considered separately in their own bills, because unlike the provisions of Obamacare, they don't contradict each other or create trouble that has to be made up for somewhere else in some massive take-it-or-leave-it omnibus bill. Nether do we have to wait until 2017. With our new majority in the Senate, let's put one of these bills on the president's desk every month and make him show the people what he's really about; thwarting the will of the people. Impossible, you say? Excuse me, we are Americans. Everything we have accomplished, from inventing the iPhone to putting Buzz Aldrin on the moon to emancipation the slaves to writing, debating and ratifying the Constitution, began as a vision of something considered impossible at the time. The only limiting factors are our courage and our perseverance. So please, have courage, and persevere. ---------------- Read the detailed health care policy reform proposal at http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/howard-hyde/post-obamacare-reform/.

Takeaways from CPAC

Below is an excerpt from a special address to the members and guests of the Southern California Republican Women And Men by Howard Hyde, March 29, 2014

------------------------
Once again thank you all for interrupting your Spring Break to come here today...If I have a theme to hold all of my disparate material together, I think it will be simply what Evan Sayet calls Adopt-a-Democrat. One of the most important things we do here is learn how to talk to our liberal brother-in-law, debate our progressive colleague and convert out Democrat friend. If I can impart to you just one insight or argument that you can use to that end, I will have succeeded.

It was our privilege to attend the Conservative Political Action Conference or CPAC this past March 6-8 in National Harbor Maryland. As I wrote in my newsletter message, there was so much going on that there was no way to take all of it in, and if you get briefings from 10 people who attended, you might get the impression that they attended 11 different conferences. Even so, I hope my report does it some justice and that other attendees might concur with me.

Some people were disappointed with the conference, feeling that their greatest concerns received inadequate attention. To some it was a sham cover for establishment Republicans to pretend that they are conservative when they are not; to others there was insufficient emphasis on the sanctity of life and the abomination of abortion. Dan Henninger of the Wall Street Journal cautions us to sober up about a presidential candidate bench that resembles a casino roulette wheel -- spin it enough times are we're bound to land on a lucky number! Israel, the Middle East and radical Islam received comparatively minor attention in my perception now that Putin's Anschluss of Ukraine has upstaged the mullahs and bin Laden's heirs, at least for the time being. As for myself, I was satisfied that Obamacare and its horrors are finally receiving the attention that they deserve. The Obamacare fiasco was at or near the top of almost every prominent speaker's agenda, as it should have been...last year, the year before that and the year before that. If we had had this clarity of understanding and commitment of purpose four years ago, then we would not be suffering this massive slow-motion train wreck today.

Rock Stars and Grownups
You've heard the stories of the rock stars of the conference, like the bookends Ted Cruz and Sarah Palin, and the Straw Poll king Rand Paul. I won't add much to what you've heard other than that standing outside of the main hall during Paul's speech was like being outside of a football stadium during the Super Bowl, and that Sarah Palin really, really, REALLY annoys liberals, who seem unable to offer any substantive rebuttal to what she says but feel free to insult her, and by extension us, in every way imaginable. It is clear that this NOT what the feminists had in mind when they said 'diversity' or 'equal pay for equal work'.

Rick Perry came in 9th in the straw poll, but should not be written off by thoughtful conservatives and Republicans IMHO. Unlike Obama, who never achieved anything of substance in his life before becoming President, Perry has a very distinguished record as a grownup doing the very serious work of administering a large and thriving state, proving that it is possible to prosper even in Obama's America. 30% of the job growth for all 50 United States in the past few years has occurred in just one state: Texas. Texas is the model for how all states and the nation ought to be governed; low taxes, light and reasonable regulation, limited government, a responsible citizenry (are you listening California?). Perry's accomplishments go beyond the headline-grabbing topics of taxes and jobs to less-discussed but equally remarkable areas like prison reform. Texas in recent years has been able to accomplish what liberals have for decades claimed that they could do but have failed at every time: that is, simultaneously reduce both the prison population AND the general crime rate.
And by the way, Perry also got a standing O for his speech in the main hall.

Donald Trump fired a few verbal surface-to-surface missiles in the direction of China in his usual calm and understated style. But there were also other perspectives on China, and it had me wishing that the Southern California Republican Women and Men would one day command the resources to be able to sponsor a panel discussion between Trump, Don Huntsman, former presidential candidate, governor of Utah and United States ambassador to China; Daniel Griswold, fellow at the Cato Institute and author of the pro free-trade and pro let's-all-just-calm-down-a-bit-about-China book titled Mad About Trade; and Kai Chen, our own one-in-a-billion former Chinese national basketball team player who reminds us daily that China is still an authoritarian, communist regime that tolerates no political dissent or free speech in spite of polishing the world image of a civilized, dynamic capitalistic nation. Those four authorities would make for a most enlightening discussion.

Speaking of the Cato Institute, its president John Allison was there along with Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch on a panel titled 'After Obama Day 1: What are the Big Alternative Ideas Conservatives Should Present as Obama's Term Ends? Before he became chief of Cato, for a quarter century John Allison ran a North Carolina bank guided by conservative libertarian principles, grew it from single-digit billions to triple-digit billions and did NOT need a bailout when TARP arrived, but was obliged to take it essentially at gunpoint. His book, The Financial Crisis and the Free-Market Cure is a well-informed and insightful insiders view of the government-led corruption that led to the meltdown of 2008 and the ill-advised remedies like Dodd-Frank that will plague us for years to come. I highly recommend it.

A few of the women of distinction were Chrystal Wright, a.k.a. 'Conservative Black Chick'; Tammy Bruce, radio talk show host who used to be a liberal feminist lesbian, but who is now a staunch independent conservative feminist lesbian; and Phyllis Schlafly, who, for those of you too young to remember her, earned the modest distinction of having almost single-handedly defeated an ill-advised amendment to the United States Constitution at a time when its passage had seemed almost inevitable. She was there, sharp as a tack at the tender age of 89 1/2, and I got a chance to speak with her briefly outside the elevators. I told her that as a liberal growing up in Berkeley the only way I knew about her was from reading Doonesbury cartoons. Her face lit up and she said that when she had made the Doonesbury pages, her kid's respect for her had spiked.
One of the most impressive women there UNDER the age of 89 1/2 to me was Carly Fiorina, who participated in the panel with John Allison and Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch. Very articulate on a broad range of issues, I think she will be a major figure on our side of the aisle for many years. I'm thinking maybe Secretary of Commerce? Or better yet, why not President ...of the Southern California Republican Women and Men in 2016? Just a thought.
Disappointingly absent from the conference were any of the female Republican Governors, like Susanna Martinez of New Mexico, Nikki Haley of South Carolina, Mary Fallin of Oklahoma or Jan Brewer of Arizona.

The CPAC Experience

This article first appeared in the March 2014 newsletter of the Southern California Republican Women and Men.
----------------------
The good news is that the corresponding secretary and I attended the Conservative Political Action Conference or CPAC this past March 6-8. The bad news is that we missed most of it. That is to say that there was so much going on for ten hours a day for three days straight that there was no way to see and experience everything that we wanted to. From rockstar speeches to social media workshops, breakout sessions, expert panels, radio interviews, film screenings, networking opportunities, job fairs and Elvis sightings, there were at all times at least two or three things going on simultaneously that one did not want to miss, but had to choose from.
The conference was not without its controversies and detractors, even on the right side of the aisle. Even so, for conservatives groaning under the leftist regime, economy and culture of California, it was a breath of fresh air and a shot of adrenaline. The opportunity to personally meet and shake hands with such luminaries as Mike Huckabee, Michael Medved, Mark Levin, Ben Carson, John Allison, Phyllis Shlafly and Dinesh D'Souza, among others, was a special privilege. I even met a member of the Austrian parliament and Secretary General of the Austrian Freedom Party, who was there with a small entourage.
The bookends of the conference were speeches by Ted Cruz and Sarah Palin, with a high point being the announcement of the results of the Straw Poll. Rand Paul has a substantial lead above the rest of the pack with 31 percent, but it is early to write off anyone. A secondary aspect of the straw poll was the demographic information it revealed, including 46% of responding attendees being 25 years old or younger.
Tweets from CPAC
I will be presenting more detailed news from CPAC with special focus on Obamacare and taking questions at our March 29 meeting. Until then, here are some quotes from the conference which I had tweeted in real time:
@HowardHyde: #cpac2014 Ted Cruz: "You want to lose elections, stand for nothing."
#cpac2014 George Will: "How many Lois Lerners are there that we don't know about?"
#cpac2014 John Bolton: the biggest national security crisis is Barack Obama.
#cpac2014 John Bolton: We could not have ousted the Taliban if they had nuclear weapons... We must not permit Iran to get them.
#cpac2014 John Bolton: Hillary, we know what difference it makes even if you don't.
#cpac2014 Rick Perry praises conservative governors who trust the people over the machinery of government.
#cpac2014 Ken Blackwell: Unintended consequences of Obamacare may not be all Unintended.
#cpac2014 Evan Sayet, author of The Kindergarten of Eden: it is so much easier to promise Utopia than to explain principles to poorly educated people.
#cpac2014 Evan Sayet: Adopt-a-Democrat
#cpac2014 Steve Scalise: Reagan promoted American exceptionalism. Obama apologizes for it.
#cpac2014 Rich Lowry: even Democrats pay lip service to the work ethic and individual responsibility.
#cpac2014 Al Cardenas: Burger King workers in North Dakota earn $20+ per hour.
#cpac2014 Mike Lee: We need to Stop talking about Ronald Reagan and start acting like him.
New trailer for Dinesh D'Souza's 'America' Released at #cpac2014: http://www.dineshdsouza.com/
#cpac2014 Marco Rubio: "Don't take for granted what we have. What we have in America is the exception, not the rule in the world."
#cpac2014 Carly Fiorina: All issues are women's issues. Not just reproduction.