By Spencer Glassman ’19, Commentary Editor

These three eponymous concepts embody the purpose of American government. Our founders did not imagine a proactive entity which would attempt to perfect society; instead, the ideal government would be one that protected the powers of the people to craft such a civilization. It is, after all, the freedom of the individual which has allowed for the greatest advancement to mankind in her history. The United States has been a great model in demonstrating that an undying devotion to these values in the face of constant resistance will promote positive change in a society to an extraordinary degree. A nation must embrace these ideals even through times of injustice in order to realize their potential. It would be foolish to do away with an ideological paragon because its truest extent had not been achieved. The law’s role as a guardian of freedom is the closest thing to a governmental apotheosis that exists in the human world. However, new ideas about collectivization and a movement towards more intrusive governance, branching out of Europe, is beginning to erode this fundamental value in the name of a new brand of ‘inalienable rights.’

European governments are near unanimous in their support of universal healthcare. The system has not, by and large, improved quality of care, survival rates for deadly diseases, or medical convenience for the European people. Rather, it persists because of the idea that healthcare is a right. Many Europeans hold that we have the right to a hip replacement just as we have the right to free speech. This notion may both seem silly and axiomatically true. No one life is more valuable than another. If we do not offer care to everyone, then people could potentially be dying in the streets. If we truly believe in equality as an inherent good, then health care must be a right of man. However, the universal healthcare’s promotion of equality is merely a facade for its underlying morally loose nature that incentivizes the violation of the individual rights of the members within a society that maintains such a system.

Universal healthcare systems collectivize responsibility, and as a result, we all become interdependent. Not only does collectivization deteriorate the character and sense of personal accountability of individuals, it also causes us to be deeply concerned about the actions of others—actions which otherwise would not be in anyway relevant to us. The foundational principle of economics is that there is a limited number of resources, yet an unlimited amount of demand. Health care is one of those resources. In the sense that it is limited, when an entire people have to share that resource, individuals will want to portion as much as possible off for themselves. The difference between a free market health care system and a governmental one is that people have the power to take care away from others in the latter. When someone who lives in a country that has universal health care is approaching the end of his or her life because of a terminal illness, the government will decide either to pay for or not pay for additional care. Every individual in the country who is not terminally ill will be motivated to cut further treatment for terminally ill individuals. After all, the additional care is futile and simply wasting resources that could be used on people who have a chance at continuing their lives. This reality sounds cold, but it is true. Universal health care is very much a piece of the pie system. It would simply be unfair to the many people who could use the resources better if they were spent on a terminally ill individual. It would, in fact, violate their freedom. What happens if the government does decide to, euphemistically, pull the plug? The terminally ill individual will die sooner, but they would have died anyways. However, is that fair to them? Why shouldn’t they receive every ounce of care possible? Clearly their freedoms have been violated. They have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Who is the government to say when that should end? In both situations, there is a violation of these inalienable rights.

The ‘right’ to health care unilaterally undermines other, more basic, freedoms. The situation outlined above, however, may be rare, or not fully demonstrate the extent to which freedom is lost under collectivization. Consider, for example, unhealthy and risky behaviors. Smoking, drinking, eating fatty foods—these are all things we are taught not to do. Why? Because they harm our health. Our health should be our own business, as in, our unhealthiness should only be unhealthy to us. However, when you collectivize health, you collectivize the lack of health. Of course in market based health insurance systems people have to pay increased premiums for other people’s unhealthy behavior, but there are two key differences. First, that system is voluntary. People pay for health insurance because they want to, with the full understanding of the responsibility of having to subsidize the actions of others. Secondly, companies can charge more for engaging in such activities. A government can not. Everyone must be a coequal member of the system. The unhealthiness of some provide a financial burden on others. The government must invest more resources into treatment for their lung cancer or other disease that can be caused by voluntary actions. As the actions are voluntary, and costly to others, those others may want to take the voluntary out of the activities. If someone’s habit of drinking soda has caused them to develop Type II Diabetes, which in turn is costing another person copious sums of money, then why should the first person be allowed to drink that soda? The same goes for every behavior. A question that could be raised is: why should people be allowed to use birth control when it costs others money? If a reasonable risk of injury is assumed by driving a motorcycle, why should people be allowed to do that? The immense collectivization of risk via universal healthcare coincides with the complete relinquishing of autonomy over personal actions. When everyone has a stake in what you do, it is unlikely you will be able to do that thing without some sort of influence from everyone else.

We all must be personally responsible. In this personal responsibility we might encounter more challenges, but we also can appreciate freedom.