health care
This paper supports the position that health care is a privilege and not a right, and this position is supported by several scholars. The political; philosophy theories postulate that a right is enforceable against someone. It creates an obligation. In the context of health care, this is lacking because no one is obligated to another. For example, one neighbor does not owe another neighbor a duty of health care, and thus the related enjoyment of health care is discretionary and thus a privilege. In fact, the person who is in need of health cannot force a medical provider to render their services. In any case, despite the social contract theory that exists between the government and the people, it is clear that the government enjoys discretion in the provision of health-related service and thus privilege accrues to those who are at the proximity of the service. It is not a right, and the government’s provision of these services is just motivated by a desire for well-being prosperity.
Scholars argue that if health care were to be perceived d as a right, then what would be the content of that right, and what would one be entitled to? There is no direct entitlement whereby the dynamic nature of health needs then come in to demonstrate that because health care is diverse, it cannot be reduced to a single right because the services can range from bare minimum prevention to specialized care, which depends on the individual’s ability to pay for these services. This disparity in access to health between the rich and the poor also shows that it is a privilege determined by factors such as the availability of money. The rich person n enjoys this privilege better. Further to the foregoing, the last aspect that bolsters the fact that health care is a privilege is that by a study of the population dynamics, it becomes obvious that “one person may be deserving of health care more than another”. This non-uniformity in individual care needs shows that unlike a right, which everyone is deserving, not everyone deserves health care, and thus it remains a privilege.