Hsieh LTE in Denver Post

The October 26, 2008 Denver Post printed my latest LTE, responding to Barack Obama's claim that health care was a "right":

Whose health plan is best?

Sen. Barack Obama's claim that health care is a "right" typifies a dangerous political trend.

A right is a freedom of action (such as the right to free speech), not an automatic claim to a good or service that must be produced by another. Attempting to guarantee a supposed "right" to health care must necessarily violate actual rights of providers or of citizens forced to pay for others' medical expenses. This is just state-sanctioned slavery or theft.

Instead of another massive government program to guarantee "universal health care," we need free-market reforms that would allow individuals to purchase health insurance across state lines, use Health Savings Accounts for routine expenses, and purchase inexpensive catastrophic-only policies for rare but expensive problems. Such reforms could cut costs by as much as 50 percent, making quality health insurance affordable to many who want to purchase it but currently can't.

Paul Hsieh, Sedalia