13 July 2018 — 0922 mdt
Will Montana’s Democrats decide that healthcare is a right?
Montana’s Democrats are holding their platform convention today and tomorrow in Great Falls. Whether the party’s platform should explicitly state that healthcare is a right one of many issues on the platform convention’s agenda, but it’s probably the most important one. The MDP’s current platform, adopted in 2016, supports “Affordable and accessible healthcare for all Montanans,” but, with one exception, omits any statement that healthcare is a right.
That exception? Abortion, although that word is not used.
A woman’s right and ability to make personal decisions regarding contraception and reproduction, as well as the right to provide or receive services related to those choices in a safe, accessible environment. [Page 13, lines 35–37.]
But there is nothing in the MDP’s 2016 platform that can be construed as asserting that men have a right to any kind of healthcare.
Democrats in Texas, a red state that may be turning purple, forthrightly state in their 2018–2020 platform that healthcare is a right:
Healthcare for All. The Texas Democratic Party asserts that healthcare is a human right, not a privilege for the few. Texas Democrats recognize that the health and well-being of Texas residents cannot be based on decisions made by non-healthcare professionals whose primary concern is the financial well-being of a corporation rather than the well-being of an individual.
Universal Healthcare. Texas Democrats support an affordable, high-quality, universal health care that would provide privately-delivered, publicly-funded healthcare for all residents of Texas…
The Texas Democratic Party weaseled-out on the phrases “single-payer” and “Medicare for All,” but the language in its platform are consistent with the single-payer concept.
Why healthcare wasn’t mentioned in the USA’s foundational documents
Healthcare is not mentioned in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States — and for good reason. When our nation was founded, healthcare was something to be feared and avoided. The germ theory of disease was almost a century in the future. Surgery was performed without anesthesia. Blood letting was a favored treatment. Useful medicines were limited to opium (tinctured with alcohol to make laudanum), quinine, and willow bark (the source of acetylsalicylic acid, aspirin).
But the concept of healthcare as a right is found in the Declaration of Independence:
We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness…
If life is a right, so is the care required to sustain it.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the WHO constitution
Two major international agreements the United States had a role in drafting address healthcare.
Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights reads:
- Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
- Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.
In 1948, the United States voted in favor of the UDHR. Although the UDHR is not legally binding on the U.S., it should be considered morally binding.
The constitution of the World Health Organization begins:
THE STATES Parties to this Constitution declare, in conformity with the Charter of the United Nations, that the following principles are basic to the happiness, harmonious relations and security of all peoples:
- Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.
- The enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic or social condition.
- The health of all peoples is fundamental to the attainment of peace and security and is dependent upon the fullest co-operation of individuals and States.
- The achievement of any State in the promotion and protection of health is of value to all.
- Unequal development in different countries in the promotion of health and control of disease, especially communicable disease, is a common danger.
- Healthy development of the child is of basic importance; the ability to live harmoniously in a changing total environment is essential to such development.
- The extension to all peoples of the benefits of medical, psychological and related knowledge is essential to the fullest attainment of health.
- Informed opinion and active co-operation on the part of the public are of the utmost importance in the improvement of the health of the people.
- Governments have a responsibility for the health of their peoples which can be fulfilled only by the provision of adequate health and social measures.
There can be no argument that healthcare is not a human right. And there should be no argument for omitting from the MDP’s platform a forthright statement that healthcare is a human right.
Equal protection under the law versus “accessible and affordable”
If healthcare is a right, we should consider it a right implied by our constitution. From that it follows we must execute that right so that Americans receive equal protection, which translates to equal healthcare, under the law. Everyone must be covered for everything, and everyone must receive the same high quality of healthcare to which they have a right.
That concept is not compatible with the concept of “affordable” healthcare Democrats currently tout. What’s affordable for Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and Jeff Bezos, is not affordable for an automobile mechanic making $18 an hour. The Affordable Care Act tries to narrow that inequity by subsidizing private health insurance, but the subsidies do not provide equal coverage. There are bronze plans, platinum plans, high deductible plans, low deductible plans, a multitude (perhaps babble is a better word) of plans. By definition, the ACA does not provide, and cannot provide, equal protection under the law.
Therefore, if healthcare is a right, and if that right requires equal protection under the law, then only one system of healthcare can honor that right: an everyone covered for everyone, zero copay, federal single-payer system financed by fair taxes. Will the MDP have the wisdom and courage to say so?