Healthcare Right Or Privilege Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Healthcare Right Or Privilege - Essay Example If the concept of healthcare is deemed as a right, healthcare as a privilege becomes self-evident and contradictory with the definition of right itself. Those, who are willing to argue that healthcare is a right, simultaneously propose a bunch of policies that ultimately turns healthcare as privilege. In this regard, Brian T. Schwarz (2008) says, â€Å"Ironically, those who claim health care is â€Å"a right and not a privilege† support policies that make it a privilege† (p.1). Even both theoretically and ethically healthcare as a privilege are more reasoning than it as a right. Since philosophically the definition of right pivots on the commonality of the individuals’ ability to do and to have anything that sustains them both physically and mentally, the concept of healthcare as a right requires some additional attributes. Healthcare is a Product produced by those in this Field In the first place, healthcare as a right asserts that one has the right to take care of one’s health to avail themselves of the available healthcare options. Also the basic concept of ‘right’ ensures that one’s right must not be entitled to what others produce without their consents. That is, one’s right must not harm others’ right. In the following lines MA Faria (1997) delineates what natural right is and what a state’s role in preserving it is: â€Å"Natural rights embody the concept of individual autonomy and negative rights that are inalienable and inherent to human beings. Natural rights†¦..like human rights can be exercised by all individuals simultaneously without infringing and trampling on the rights of others.† (p.98) If analyzed deeply, it will be evident that â€Å"healthcare consists of diagnoses and treatments by highly-trained medical professionals. It involves sophisticated products, instruments, and tests designed and developed at great investment, effort, and cost by scientists, enginee rs, and entrepreneurs. That is, people produce health care† (Schwarz, 2008, p. 2). The pattern of healthcare market in the USA has flourished to the stage at which the status of healthcare as a product has been rather boosted up by the mode the production of healthcare service. On one hand, the US healthcare industry has excelled both qualitatively and quantitatively in the past few decades. On the other hand, healthcare-cost has increased many times, as it is said in an article, According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Americans spent $1.3 trillion, or 13.2 percent of the gross domestic product, on health care in 2000. Since the mid-1960s, health care costs have increased at double-digit levels, far exceeding the rate of inflation. (Barlett & James, 2006, p. 34) In the face of the increasing cost of medical-care in the private, the Health Saving Account was started as a tax advantaged medical savings account in 2003. Health saving account (HSA) is an inv estment in individual health an option differentiated from health insurance cover. In this account the patient deposits savings in order to pay for their health care needs. This account allows people to pay for current health expenses and save for future medical and retiree health expenses on a tax-free basis. The goal of these