Do we have a right to health care?

Feb. 26--I noticed a discussion -- well, argument really -- on Facebook the other day about whether health care is a right or a privilege.

Have we really come to this?

Are we ready to say that only the privileged have a right to health?

One of the arguments was something like, if they want health insurance, let them get a job.

In other words, I've got a job, therefore I have health insurance.

On the surface, that sounds reasonable.

Except a report by the Kaiser Family Foundation last fall found that only 49 percent of Americans got health insurance at work in 2015 -- the most recent year available.

And in Kentucky, it was 45 percent.

That was down from 50 percent nationally and 47 percent in Kentucky in 2013.

If you're buying health insurance on the open market without any government assistance, the website ehealthinsurance.com says, premiums for individual coverage averaged $321 per month last year.

For family plans, it says, the average was $833 per month.

The average annual deductible for individual plans was $4,358 and the average deductible for family plans was $7,983.

Those numbers are way beyond a lot of people's abilities to pay.

So, is health care a right or a privilege?

The Declaration of Independence says, "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."

Does the right to life mean the right to health care?

The rising cost of health care and the stagnation of wages for the past decade are both complicated issues.

And I don't have the answers.

But I do know that I'd rather see my tax dollars spent on healthcare for everyone than on a long list of things they're being spent on today.

Keith Lawrence, 270-691-7301, klawrence@messenger-inquirer.com.

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