Gina Liggett on the "Right" to Health Care

In response to Rep. Claire Levy's July 1 OpEd in which she asserts, "We must begin with the premise that health care is a basic right", the July 6, 2007 Denver Post printed the following response from Gina Liggett:

"The bureaucrats are coming, the bureaucrats are coming," I cried out after reading your columns on health care. All the writers have legitimate concerns about the problems with health care. All erroneously blame the free market. All advocate socialized medicine. Dr. Pius Kamau says, "How long can we go on ... without thinking of our overall responsibility to every American" for the health care he's often not compensated for.

Gabriel Kaplan says that "regulation and government involvement are the most effective and efficient means" of fixing the health care system; yet the very problems he describes are a direct result of government dominance in the health care system.

Rep. Claire Levy blames problems such as the huge cost of "insurance company overhead" on "employer-based health insurance" and says we should "spend according to a comprehensive plan" - presumably one of those 208 Commission proposals that recommend increased governmental control of the health care marketplace.

Health care is most definitely not a right. A right is not forcing citizens to pay for goods and services enjoyed by someone else. A right is not a mortgage on the life of a physician. Only a free market honors the rights of the consumer and the provider.

Socialized medicine is immoral, it is impractical, and health care will deteriorate if the government completes its takeover of the health care system.

Gina Liggett, RN, Denver