Last night, CNBC featured a segment on "Is Health care a right or a privilege?" and invited two speakers to debate the question.
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One of the speakers was Dr Mai Pham, senior policy advisor at the National Physicians Alliance (NPA). The NPA fimly believes that health care is a human right and its campaigns and mission speak directly to that. The other speaker was Michael Cannon, director of health policy at the CATO Institute, a free-market, libertarian organization.
Make your own conclusions about some incendiary statements made in this debate, but I must highlight one here.
"Saying health care is a fundamental human right is one of those simplistic nonsense slogans" -- Michael Cannon, CATO.
Unbelievable. No it's not. Saying health care is a fundamental human right is an important statement that we must embrace fully as a society (and to an extent have already embraced).
As guerillamamamedicine recently blogged:
i do not deserve a good job, or a beautiful home, or health care because i went to school and got my degree. i deserve them because i am a human being. if i were to say that i deserve them because of how many years i spent in school, or how much money i paid to go to school, or the number of letters behind my name, then i am saying that i deserve basic human dignity because of my educational privilege.
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I applaud Dr. Pham's calm and composure in the debate. I think we could learn some tips on how to stay on point and how to debate an issue, from her.
In any case, it was a pleasant surprise to see this issue covered by CNBC; perhaps the station will cover such issues in the future.
(cross-posted at Cure This)