I've created a MONSTER with this thread lol!!!!
Yes, you did. And I think you should have sort of expected this, which is why I wish that we would discourage talk of religion and politics in the EM sub-forum. I certainly don't talk about religion and politics at work, and this is sort of like work (i.e. same kind of crowd).
To answer your question:
A majority of American physicians are fiscally conservative. According to
one poll, 77% of male physicians and 69% of women identify that way. If you are asking anecdotal data, my personal experience confirms this: most physicians I've worked with seem to lean fiscally conservative. This thread and forum also indicate that to me.
I suspect there is a general drift toward fiscal conservatism as a medical student turns into a resident and then an attending, once the salary increases a lot and the physician pays more in taxes. (
This poll shows that a majority of medical students are liberal, but I don't know if they broke it down to see what the breakdown is on social vs fiscal.)
This is a funny Onion article which I think would characterize many physicians (although hyperbolically so):
Fiscally I'm A Right-Wing Nutjob, But On Social Issues I'm ****ing Insanely Liberal
I think it makes obvious sense why physicians would lean fiscally conservative. I am very liberal, and vote Green Party (Dr. Jill Stein in this election cycle), and find Bernie Sanders to be the lesser of the evils. Yet, a part of me is also fearful that my salary will take a hard hit if Sanders were elected. Additionally, I joke that I am a Green Party liberal at heart, but my patients often push me to become Republican. This is because we see lots of patients abusing the system, and we ourselves are overworked, so this does start oneself to take a very negative opinion of the "lower segments of society." This must be acknowledged.
I work clinically in hickville but hold an academic position at an ivory tower institution. I joke that hickville pushes me to become conservative, whereas the ivory tower pulls me back to the liberal elitism I'm comfortable with.
Anyways, back to your actual question and more seriously: As for whether or not healthcare is a right or not, this is a hotly debated issue and since nobody here can speak for God or some higher power, nobody can claim absolute certainty on this issue. Instead, both sides argue their points based on what they believe.
Amongst Americans, the question is often about the Constitution (and the Declaration of Independence, which is often confused for the Constitution). In this regard, the Declaration of Independence states that all men have "unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness," whereas the Constitution argues for a purpose to "promote the general welfare." Liberals and conservatives disagree whether or not welfare, medicare, and/or universal healthcare would fall under the rubric of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" and the general welfare clause.
However, over U.S. law is
international law, which recognizes the right of health. The right to healthcare is a universally recognized human right, so declared by the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which the United States is a signatory to. Additionally, the United States is a signatory of the World Health Assembly resolution 58.33, which also states the same.
The entire "free world" agrees to this, and
the United States is pretty much the only country in this group *not* to provide universal health care coverage. In fact, we are
dead last. We Americans tend to take human rights very seriously, especially when human rights abuses take place in other countries--especially those considered enemy states--so there is a strong argument for consistency. If we cite the UN Universal Declaration of Human rights when punishing other countries, then we ought to follow it ourselves.
Further, the United States is among the wealthiest countries in the world, if not
THE wealthiest country in the world. If all these other Western countries with less resources than us can provide universal health coverage, then why can't we? Further, due to its inefficient patchwork system, the U.S. spends more than double what other Western countries do on healthcare. So, we spend way more, and get way less.
As for the expense, which the OP alluded to:
(never mind how it's going to be paid for that fiscally speaking makes any sense)
Proponents of universal healthcare (UHC) argue that UHC would actually be almost cost neutral or even save money for individual Americans. It is tempting to scoff at this idea, because how can one get something for nothing? Admittedly, government spending would have to increase to support UHC, to the tune of an estimated
70 billion dollars. (I am, however, seeing conflicting figures. I've seen a much higher amount here, to the cool tune of
562 billion dollars.)
However, what is meant by this claim--that Americans would actually *save* money through UHC--is that although government spending will increase (and thus Americans would pay more taxes to the government), Americans are already paying *more* to private insurance companies. So, there would be a net savings (paying more to the government but none to private insurance companies). The net savings for the people of the United States is estimated at
600 billion dollars. Subtracting the cost of higher taxation ($562 billion) and you are left with a net savings of some 38 billion dollars.
There is a desire to demonize the government, and I think a lot of that is justified. However, private insurance companies are a far greater evil. Further, going to a single payer system would save in all sorts of administrative costs. Right now,
a whopping $294.3 billion is spent on administrative costs, or 31 cents out of every dollar spent on healthcare. In single payer systems, the percentage is much, much lower:
31% in USA vs 16.7% in Canada.
Further, it is not the case that the United States cannot afford universal healthcare. As stated above, the United States is among the richest countries in the world, if not the richest. The question is where we choose to spend that money. The military budget sits at a hefty
610 billion dollars, dwarfing that of every other country on earth (and more than the next seven countries COMBINED). Just the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq cost a whopping
4-6 trillion dollars.
The yearly price of 70 billion dollars could easily be subtracted from the 610 billion dollars given to the military, providing universal healthcare to all Americans--and the U.S. military would still spend way, way more than any other country on earth on its military.
As a physician, I realize that universal healthcare would probably result in the decrease of my salary. So, I have a personal reason to dislike this idea, even if I think it is the right thing to do. To be clear, I don't actually think doctors are paid too much. We are among the most educated and productive classes in society, and we should be compensated adequately for that.
Further, if doctor salaries decrease to bring them in line with other countries in the Western world, then education should also be free. After all, the high salary of US doctors contrasts with the huge amounts of student debt we acquire. On that note, I support free college for all, which would cost
62.6 billion dollars, which I also think should be taken from the military. In this regard, I support the bumper sticker-worthy saying:
"It will be a great day when our schools get all the money they need and the air force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber."
It is not then a question about whether we have the money or not, but where we are willing to spend it. Green Party sort of liberals would rather spend it on universal healthcare, education, humanitarian work, the environment, etc. While conservatives argue for fiscal conservatism, the reality is that they want to spend the same money but on the military. (The exception to this was
Ron Paul.) The libertarian
Rand Paul, for example, actually recently
proposed a $76.5 billion increase in the military budget ($190 billion in two years). As the article notes:
In an olive branch to defense hawks hell-bent on curtailing his White House ambitions, the libertarian Senator introduced a budget amendment late Wednesday calling for a nearly $190 billion infusion to the defense budget over the next two years—a roughly 16 percent increase... Paul’s amendment brings him in line with his likely presidential primary rivals
That 76.5 billion dollar could go to universal college, which costs 62.6 billion dollars. It is something interesting that conservative voters would often support military expenditures and costly wars, but not education or healthcare.
I think it is tempting to blame the 3-PPD smoker with end stage COPD for his own condition. Leaving aside the issue of smoking being prevalent in poverty stricken areas, we must ask about the five year old child with a life threatening illness whose parents did not pay for health insurance. It is an inconsistency to argue that the five year old should be covered ...
Any time you make a good or service produced by the labor of another human being a "right" then you are either going to have to resort to theft or indentured servitude to provide it.
If that is truly the case, then would it not be "theft" to take your money in taxes to cover children? If one takes a consistently libertarian position, then one would have to deny healthcare to a child--even the five year old who comes down with cancer. After all, strict libertarians would want to deny public education to even school children. It takes taxes ("theft") to fund public elementary, junior high, and high schools. And, at one point in time in our history, children worked for a living, before progressive laws sought to ban child labor and endorse public education.
If it can be justified to take your money in taxes to pay for the child, then the matter has been established: it is sometimes justified to take your money in taxes to pay for the general welfare of your fellow human.
In a pure libertarian world, if someone's house burns down, the fire brigade would do nothing since the person failed to pay private fire insurance. In this situation, if you did not do due diligence and buy fire insurance, then you deserve for your house to burn down.
If the reasonable human agrees that in this scenario, the fire brigade should be a public service paid for by taxes, then how much more precious are lives than houses?
Look, we may not like universal health care or taxes because it will hurt us economically, but let's at least be honest about the reasons we don't like it, instead of hiding behind libertarianism, which I think is often used as a system of justification by rich people to hoard their wealth.
?! 
