Healthcare And Ethics

With 45 million uninsured in America the healthcare controversy combined with the immigration issues will not be subsiding anytime soon. There are those that believe there is a right to healthcare and there are those that think our borders need to be closed with no pity for those that have crossed into our country illegally. John Rawls believes in a certain amount of rights. Those that can be divided into positive and negative rights, and those that entail positive obligations to enforce them. The only problem if America according to many is based on freedom then the positive right to healthcare would only restrict those freedoms which we are entitled to.

Engelhard denies a right to healthcare for the sole reason that though we have a right not to be harmed. The positive right to healthcare only impedes on my freedom. In his theory if I work hard for my money then why should I be obligated to pay for others. In the instance of illegal immigrants I do not want to pay for those that do not even pay taxes in my country. They take over our emergency rooms and have caused hospitals to close because of the tax dollars they cost us. However, Archbishop John R. Quinn of San Francisco feels differently, "immigrants, even the illegal and undocumented, as human persons have a right to education, employment, healthcare, and housing worthy of a human person" (Wilbanks, 196). The Christian perspective says that because freedom is the highest value of America then there should certainly be a right to health care.

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