Our public school system is subsidized by the government. In other words, the states are given money by the fed for education. Moreover, all children are required to attend school until at least the age of 16. Our health care system, on the other hand, is largely privatized. We must pay for our own doctors, medical procedures, prescriptions, etc. We have well over 40 million people in the U.S. with no health care coverage. Most Western European states have universal health care.
Why is education not only mandatory, but considered a right in this country while health care is not? Is free health care, like free education, a fundamental human right? Please explain your answers.
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I think that health care is more of a natural right than education is. A persons health is much more important than their education, a person can live without a college education but some people couldn't live without a surgery such as triple bipass surgery or something along those lines. All doctors have to do is stabilize a person and then they can kick them to the curb.
Education is an extremley important part of creating a good quality of life but an even better one is having two functional kidneys. Some hospitals might be stricter on weather a person has insurance or not. Some hospitals might even give you an opperation for free, but those situtations are few and far between.
A good moive to watch about health insurance and th hospital system is John Q. Its a good moive because it teaches you and it really gets you into it. And plus Denzel Washington is in it and he's pretty awesome at everything. I think when they make a moive about Obama they should cast Denzel as the 44th president.
I agree with Jack on saying that health care is more of a natural right than education is. If your dying, it's kind of hard to make it to school.
I don't have health insurance so a lot of times I have to do without. I get sick a lot too so it really does suck when I have to miss school and suffer, when I could go to the doctor and get a shot or some pills to make it better.
My moms rule is that i have to be sick for a week until she will take me to the ER or Urget care, unless she has money. Or if it's something urget.
Education is important, don't get me wrong. But if the government is going to pay to educate people, then they should pay to keep those people heathy. If anything, they should have free heathcare for people who are under the age of 18 because those people are the people who can't do anything about getting healthcare.
I feel that health care should definitely be a right that the US provides citizens with. Honestly I feel all this crap about not having enough doctors is stupid. I will admit there will be a slight shortage but wont there be a surplus in people wanting to help more? Look how many teachers there are in our federal based education system. I'm sure America would be fine.
If people don't have their health then how can they learn and use the education that is available to them? I feel like a health care plan for the US is important to enable a more stable country. I too have to agree with Jack and Ashley. I feel that health is a God given right. education can wait.
I know my mom always bugs me when I say I need to go to the doctors. She will complain about the money. If health care is provided for us I wont have to worry about if I am sick enough to go.
Civil rights are the basic legal rights a person must possess in order to have the status of equal citizenship in a liberal democratic state
-standford enc. philos.
according to this I consider health care a basic civil right, more than a human right which is generally considered minimum for existence
while for some healthcare is a minumum for existence, for the majority this isnt true & they can survive w/o it, even if not very well
education is also a civil right but i think it's difficult and a bit presumptuous to rank the importance of these rights in relation to one another
education sometimes seems more like a privilege than a right but maybe that's just bc our particular system seems/is superfluous or ill-focused. yeah we have some stupid classes & a lot of busywork at fairmont but that shouldnt speak for free education per se
"Education is an extremley important part of creating a good quality of life but an even better one is having two functional kidneys."
that seems pretty simple & acceptable but given thought it's again presumptuous to say things like this - what kind of life does ignorance bring & is it worth extending? anyway jack talked about college education & i dont necessarily consider that a civil right
a problem with ashley saying that " if the government is going to pay to educate people, then they should pay to keep those people heathy" is that it ignores that healthcare involves additional costs, not simply utilizing costs already being spent on education
however i think in principle i agree with her, in that if education is a civil right then health care is too.. i wont say which one is more important & to that end i think it's either both or neither
Katherine
Should we then not provide education? Why is education subsidized? Is everyone truly born with natural rights?
We should because it's a civil right, this is why it's subsidized along with the need for productive citizens
citizens have civil rights
Health care is definately a basic human right!! Just watch the documentary film, "Sicko" and you will get the full picture. This is hard to explain. Universal health care works like a charm in Europe, and would also work well here too. Yes, citizenz pay for the health care of others, but it works. I mean, not everyone gets cancer requiring expensive treatments, but the few that do get stuck with a huge bill to pay for on their own. Many Americans don't have health insurance. If everyone chips in (taxes) Then that cancer patient has his/her bills paid. It would be great. Most people won't get really sick and need expensive treatments, but put yourself in someone else's shoes and imagine paying for all those bills on your own. Good luck. People would be extremely grateful for it when they need the services. No more billing centers in hospitals. No more worrying about canceling your children's college savings to remove a breast tumor. No more not calling 911 for an ambulance because you know the ride will cost like $1,000. The health of citizens should be THE top priority of all nations. Europe proved it and Europe is healthier than the USA for that reason.
I do think health care should be considered a right in this country. i am not sure though, how that would work in America. Maybe Americans should be required to have health care until they are a certain age, like education. i agree that health care should be considered a right but i don't see a sucessfull health care plan happining
Well, I think health care is a basic human right, as well as education. But I think education is the doorway to good decision making. Wouldn't it make sense that if you can make good decisions, then you would be able to get health care without needing to have you hand held by the government? In a way, when the government forces you to have a certain kind of health care, they take your free choice away. If health care is a basic right, don't we have the right to choose what kind we have? or if we even have it at all?
I totally agree with Jesse Hill on this one. If people are educated enough then they should know the pros and cons of healthcare. True, both are basic human rights (at least in my eyes), but education will make the difference in the types of healthcare you will choose.
Also, I agree with his comment about the ability to choose healthcare. Why should the government choose one collective healthcare for us when we all have different needs?
First I want to go over the Health Care Statistics. 9 million of the people without healthcare make more than $75,00 a year, 8.3 million make between $50,000 and $74,999 per year. 8 to 10 million aren't citizens of the Uniteed States. This statistic is in the Census Bureau report "Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Converage in the United States. The number of people that cannot afford health care is actually somewhere between 10 and 15 million, not 40 million. Or less tan 7% of the population of the United States.
We consider education a right, but it isn't. If the government decided to stop subsidizing education this instant, there would be no constitutional grounds to stop them from doing so. Second, mandatory education is stupid. Education should never be mandatory.
Finally I would have to say that this country is equal opportunity. You have the opporunity to get an education and you have the opportunity to get health care. Neither is a right. You don't have the right to go to school, which is why the principal and expell you and equally so you don't have the right to recieve universal health care.
I think that healthcare should be considered a right for all citizens. We can still have a private practice option, just like we have a private school option. We already have medicare, and medicaid, why not just go for it and get universal healthcare? Everyone else is doing it. :] And, isn't it the government's job to take care of its citizens? Granted that is a more socialist view, and, well, the United States is not socialist. So it might not be the right thing for the US government philosophy, but it might be for its citizens.
i think that going to the doctor and getting a prescription filled or getting a surgery should not be such a big deal. i think everyone deserves the rights to be able to stay healthy for very little cost. i think it is really sad that people die over their illness just because the surgery costs too much. i do think that that health care is a human right for the fact that everyone should have an equal opportunity at living a healthy life!
i think that education is not a human right. i think some kids, they just do not appreciate school and if they really do not want to go then they should not, by law, have to. i think that kids should really be pushed into receiving a good education because it puts you ahead in life, but i think your health trumps education.
i think if you have good health and then you can have good hard working skills.
if you work really hard without an education you can still make it in the world.
but if you get an education, then get cancer or some type of disease, and cannot afford treatment, what can you do except die?
This seems like a difficult question to answer and i think its best to look at human nature and more precisely the culture of people in the united states compared to europeans.
I feel that the reason why socialized health care is popular in europe is because that world war II was fought there and many people died and many bussinesses were destroyed. The only thing really left was the government and for example, the UK which still had its natural government, many politicans there felt that they could get the vote if they vowed to allow socialized health care to the desperate hurt and sick people of the post war era. England's NHS formed in 1947 mostly because politicans were able to get votes for its creation.
Anyways, I think that Americans decided (early on) that education was more important because if people got sick back in the early 1800's they just died and they went away from everyone's minds unlike today where the sick can live for many years but be drained of all money and they stand out more to us than back in the early 1800's. I feel that this happened in most industrialized nations in the time and besides the poor were the ones who got sick back then and the rich few that got severly sick had money for doctors. I feel that this allowed americans to dismiss the idea of socialized health care and to fill that void they felt that education should be more important to deliver socialized, along with all the other nations that were modern.
I feel that World War I and World War II were the main reasons why europe wanted socailaized healthcare and we didnt. I feel that both Europe and the U.S.A. had ideas that education should be a right before and after the world wars but, since the world wars were fought in europe and the U.S.A wasn't really affected this led to the creation of socialized medicine in europe and we never really had a dire time of need for a socialized heathcare plan because capitalism seemed to be taking care of it.
I feel that Health Care is not a human right because we will abuse the idea of it granted it is nice to have i dont think it is a human right, its more of a human privalge and like that so is free education.
To be completely honest, I have no clue why school is mandatory. If everywhere you look, people only learn if they really want to learn. Forcing someone to learn is most of the time a wasted effot. I think that the only reason that might make sens is that health products and services cost so much more than teaching.
Doctors and drug companies are monopolizing the medical industry. I thought our government was supposed to keep that from happening? I'm not saying that I want the government to control everything about the medical industry either.
An education is a very important thing to have. As Americans, our government wishes for us to have the best education possible. I think education is mandatory because if you gave a 7 year old the choice whether or not they wanted to go to school, they would probably choose not to. The children of today need to go to school to become the doctors, lawyers and politicians of tomorrow. School gives children the basics of how to live life; it not only gives them an education, but provides them with the social skills and life lessons needed to be successful when they are older. I can understand why education is important and neccesary.
However...
I think if education is a right, then health care should be a right as well. Your health should be just as important as your education! If one isn't healthy, they can't go to school anyway. I don't see the problem with universal health care. I think our country could deal with it.I know many have issues with having to pay taxes on health care, thus paying for other people. But shouldn't Americans be willing to help each other out? If our country is called the UNITED states, shouldn't we be willing to show our unity by helping out our neighbor? Health is more important than education. If we aren't alive by the time we grow up to run the country, what is the point of obtaining an education? I think health care should be a right in this country. I think it is silly that it isn't already.
the 7 year old's parents could make them go to school rather than the government
Although I feel health care should be a mandatory right, I can see why the government provides education instead of health care to everyone. Since everyone is different, a universal health care program would not work. I think that people would take advantage of free health care. I believe that certain people, such as the uneducated, would try to take advantage of the free health care and therefore use it excessively. For example, a homeless man may fake a heart attack just so that he can have a place to sleep or a shower. I believe that the government provides everyone with the opportunity to get an education so that they can better themselves by being informed about different types of health care.
You have to live, but you don't really need to go to school. Education in America is a waste considering that the only countries with dumber kids don't have schools. Clearly our school systems are one of the worst in the world and we reem people to keep them alive. We really need to focus on improving education and providing at least cheaper healthcare in America instead of worrying about foreign countries constantly. We need to quit telling kids to grow up to be doctors for money and start telling them to grow up to be doctors to help people. Eventually, improved education and more government spending on healthcare research should result in cures for illness that right now kill people slowly while doctors milk money out of them.
I think that Healthcare is just as important as education. Education is needed to understand how to take care of the body and also for those people who decide to go into the medical field. I'm not sure that it's the best idea for the government to subsidize healthcare because of the the capitailist society, but it looks like there may not be much capitalism left. If the government were to subsidize healthcare the citizens would be on a more even level as far as health, which may make it easier for them to learn. Better health could equal more oppurtunities for kids to learn and better society as a whole. I'm still undecided about subsidizing healthcare, but it might just help enough people to do better in society.
I think that health care is a natural right just like education is. You need to be healthly to live and while education is important I think that health care is more important.
If education is a natural right then I believe that health care should be too.
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