Why Healthcare is not a Right

Here is an interesting interview in which Congressman Ron Paul is asked about his notion that healthcare, as well as other goods and services are not rights. He explains this in detail and shows that making goods and services “rights” violates the rights of others; because the government has to take from somebody else in order to hand out goods and services to people who don’t have them. Taking of goods and services from one person to give to another is not the hallmark of a free society.

RT: “You’ve said before that you feel that healthcare is not a right. Can you justify that?”

Ron Paul: “I think very easily: you have a right to your life, you have a right to your liberty and you ought to have a right to keep what you earn in a free country; but you don’t have a right to ‘stuff’. You don’t have a right to services or things like a house or a job; because, in order to get that, the government would have to take it from somebody else.

If somebody claims you have the right to a car and they don’t have one and the government gives them a car; they have to take the money or the car from someone else, so it’s a contradiction in terms. If somebody claims that they have a right to something; they have to violate somebody else’s right.

So the most you can expect in a free society is for the government to make an attempt at protecting rights, not to try to redistribute wealth; if you do that, all people lose their rights.”

Ron Paul: “…What I’ve tried to do in the past is offer something that would replace government programs; because there’s lots of ways you can deliver services and good other than through government mandates and government spending; because inevitably that fails…”