Hi, I’m T1J. [WEIRD VOICE:] Follow me. This video, much like all of my videos would
not be possible without the support of my Patrons and Members, including homies like
Heather Sanders, Joseph Church, Ronda, and Dean Rodman. If you would like to support me and my channel,
you can become a homie yourself by clicking the Join button below the video or by checking
out my page on Patreon. So as many of you who have been watching for
a while might know, I have always resisted referring to this channel as educational and
myself as any kind of expert or thought leader. I mostly see this channel as an opportunity
to start conversations about things I find interesting. And while I generally research and think carefully
about my message, I don’t think my takes are in and of themselves any more valid or
useful than yours. In fact I routinely interact with members
of my audience who clearly have more knowledge and insight than I do on many of the subjects
I discuss, and I always appreciate feedback from those types of people. All that said, I don’t tend to shy away
from my own opinions in these videos. I’m often praised for taking a measured
look at topics from several angles, but ultimately the videos I make are opinion essays. Usually they are arguments for a particular
viewpoint. I’d like to think that my arguments are
sometimes compelling, or at least entertaining. Or maybe there are 150 thousand people just
hate watching. But some things are hard to argue for. Philosophy is fascinating to me, because it
often involves trying to create arguments for things that can’t really be proven to
be true or false. Moral philosophy considers how people ought
to behave, but this seems to be extremely subjective, to the era in which you live,
to the culture you belong to, and even to each individual. If there is any common thread through my videos,
it is, or at least I would like it to be an encouragement of compassion and thoughtfulness
for other humans. But the assertion that you ought to be like
that is a moral argument. And I haven’t really spent too much time
making an argument for why you should show compassion and be thoughtful. It’s kind of taken for granted on this channel
that it’s a good way to be. But I fully appreciate the fact that not everyone
agrees that it is always necessary to be compassionate and thoughtful. I even understand that people may have different
ideas of what those words even mean than I do. However, I believe that if I’m doing my
job well, most people should understand what I mean when I use those words, and I also
believe that most people who will watch my videos agree that those are good things. The people that don’t are free to watch,
but I suppose they aren’t the target audience. And it’s hard to really go beyond that. Maybe one day we can have that philosophical
discussion about why I think compassion is the way to go, but alas, that day is not today. Today we’re going to talk about health care. And the reason I say all this is because my
views on healthcare are largely based on my moral worldview. And if we have a fundamental disagreement
on what is morally correct in the first place, then all of the follow up arguments will fall
flat. So I’m guessing you’ve read the title
of the video and probably have already had your initial reaction to it, whether you agree
or disagree. But in order to continue we’ve got to define
our terms. A lot of the disagreement on the issue of
whether Healthcare is a right boils down to pedantic debates about what a right even is. At its most basic level, having a right to
something means either that you are allowed to do something, or that something is owed
to you. So you may have a right to express yourself
freely, or you may have a right to a lawyer when accused of a crime. This also implies that the negative versions
of these are true, namely that you are allowed not to do something, that is, you have a right
not to be compelled to do something you don’t want to do, or to have something done to you
that you do not consent to. So you may have a right to remain silent when
detained by the police, or you may have a right not to be assaulted. All of the examples I’ve given fit roughly
into a legal framework of rights, and the concept of rights is fundamental to the law,
in fact a primary function of the law in modern democracies is to enforce and protect people’s
rights. And while there is global pressure for all
nations to adopt equitable, humanist policy, ultimately each country decides what rights
it legally affords its people. For example, in the United States, you have
the right to publicly sympathize with enemies of the country, or disgraced historical figures
who are widely regarded as villains, like slaveholders or dictators. People might hate you for it, but you generally
won’t get arrested. However, in South Korea, the citizens do not
have the legal right to sympathize with Kim Jong Un and North Korea. It is literally illegal, and they have arrested
several people accused of doing so. Not a 1-to-1 comparison, but you get the point. But the law is only one of several ways to
conceptualize rights. Another way, is to talk about natural rights. These are rights that people supposedly have
from birth, just by virtue of being a person. They are universal and independent of any
laws or customs. They cannot be repealed or revoked, they are
inalienable. Some argue that these rights are granted by
a god, while others say the very nature of humanity implies these rights. Perhaps the most famous concept that is proposed
as a natural right is the right to life. Which is to imply that it is immoral to kill
or attempt to kill another human who wishes not to die. The problem here is we’re getting back into
moral philosophy territory. There have been many great discussions throughout
history about whether or not natural rights or objective moral laws exist, and you should
look into it, I think it would be enriching. But as I said before, it’s hard to make
sound arguments about fundamental moral principles. How can you prove that humans have universal,
inalienable moral rights? And even if you could, how could you determine
exactly what they were? You pretty much can’t, you just have to
make the best argument you have and hope it rings true in other people’s minds, and
it’s hard to really go beyond that. So one other way we can discuss the notion
of rights is with regard to social contracts. These are quite simply rights that we grant
to each other just because we agreed as a society that it would be good to do that. So for example, instead of arguing that we
have the “right to life” just by virtue of being a human, we come together as a society
and decide that killing each other is kind of a huge bummer, like we mostly all would
rather not be killed, and we also generally don’t like it when other people get killed,
so let’s agree not to do that to each other, and lets condemn or punish those that do. And of course these socially mandated rights
often but not always intertwine with, or are the basis for legal rights. Murder is illegal in virtually every country. So that lines up nicely. These can definitely contradict though. In America we have the legal right to bear
firearms, and we sure damn do it. However, it’s pretty much statistically
demonstrable that our love of guns results in thousands of arguably preventable deaths
of innocent people every year. So our agreement to protect each other’s
right to life has clashed with our legal right to bear arms. But that brings up another issue. While I’d say it’s pretty clear that the
right to life implies a duty to avoid killing each other, does it also involve a responsibility
to protect each other from dying? Imagine you see a stranger crossing the street. They’re on the phone, not paying attention. All of a sudden a car comes speeding down
the road, and you can tell it’s not stopping. Would you yell out to that person and try
to get their attention, in hopes they could move out of the way of the speeding car? My guess is that most of you would. And if you didn’t, and the person was killed,
you would probably feel bad. Correct me if I’m wrong. But the real question is, should you? That is to say, do you have a moral responsibility
to do what you can to keep this person from being killed or severely injured? This is the strength of the social contract
when compared to the law. As far as I know, it wouldn’t be illegal
in most places to neglect to say something to this ill-fated stranger. But in that moment most of us would understand
how potentially awful this situation is and spring to action. And we would want someone to do the same for
us. So I do think that the social contract not
only involves not directly killing people but also doing what we can to prevent people
who do not wish to die from dying. Now I don’t necessarily think that it should
be illegal to fail to prevent someone’s death; that seems like a potentially dangerous
precedent. And I also think the law plays a role in certain
cases where the social contract cannot. I’ll talk about that a little more later. Now of course, we didn’t all meet in a convention
center somewhere and come up with rules about how we should treat each other. Much of this social contract is implied and
subconsciously adhered to. Most of the time, when humans are unsupervised
and left to their own devices, they don’t typically just run around killing and hurting
and robbing each other. And I don’t think it’s because we’re
afraid of the legal consequences. I think it’s because we don’t want to. The idea of harming another innocent person
is distasteful to most of us. This is partly because, as many studies show,
humans seem to be born with an inclination towards empathy and caring for others. This behavior needs to be reinforced however. Thankfully, it seems to be the case that most
modern societies value compassion and empathy, which has helped condition our subconscious
mind to react negatively to human suffering. This is also why I don’t feel a pressing
need to explain to you why you should be nice to people, because I feel like you probably
already believe you should. Of course people harm each other and do unkind
things all the time, essentially breaking the contract. And this is unfortunate. But we see time and time again, that even
if the law can’t, society tends to condemn and ostracize the people that egregiously
break the contract, and in my opinion, this simply emphasizes the fact that the contract
actually exists. It’s also true that moral inclinations are
sometimes based on our political views, which can lead to disagreements about the details
of the social contract. For example, some people may believe that
abortion is a violation of the right to life, while some people disagree than human fetus
is in fact a person with rights. But that debate is beyond the scope of this
video, I just want to emphasize that, like everything else, it’s fucking complicated. So if we generally believe in a right to life,
it is natural, to me at least, to extrapolate from that a right to some standard of good
health. And again, I think most people want to be
healthy, and I think most people have a negative reaction to seeing other people get hurt and
sick. So once again, I believe we’ve generally
agreed to not cause each other to get hurt and sick, and to condemn or punish those who
do. And this is usually a legally protected right
as well. It’s usually against the law to cause people
physical harm. But again, the question is, does this also
imply a responsibility to do what we can to prevent people from becoming hurt or sick? If you recently quit working at a restaurant
because you learned the cooks used diseased rats they found in the alley as meat for the
chili, do you think you have a moral responsibility to, at the very least, discourage people from
eating there? You’d probably want someone to do it for
you. But when we’re talking about health, it
goes even deeper. With life, it’s like either you have it
or you don’t, and there’s not much crossing between the two states. But with health, there is something called
healthcare. And adequate healthcare can cause your health
situation to go from bad to good. And some people need adequate healthcare in
order to enjoy their right to life. Because they might die or suffer otherwise. I can’t speak for other countries, but in
the United States, we provide emergency healthcare to everyone who seeks it. If you show up at the emergency room, you
will be treated, regardless of your situation. You’ll get a huge fuckin bill later, but
you’ll receive healthcare. Why do we do this? Put another way, should we do this? If we fail to do this, are we doing something
unethical or immoral? Some people argue that healthcare is a commodity
and not a right, but what other commodity is guaranteed to people regardless of their
ability to pay for it? It’s bizarre to even say the words out loud. That don’t sound like a commodity to me. And I think the reason that we care for people
even when they can’t afford to pay for it is because we as a society collectively believe
that people deserve, or are owed healthcare. And we’d want someone to do it for us. Former Congressman and famed libertarian Ron
Paul was asked a few years ago if people who couldn’t afford healthcare should be left
to die. Paul himself gave a roundabout non-answer,
but someone in the audience was very confident about their answer. And I suppose this is where the initial thought
about fundamental moral disagreements comes into play. To me, saying that you should let someone
whom you have the ability to care for simply die because they can’t afford the treatment
is thoroughly reprehensible. But I suspect that most of you watching this
video wouldn’t simply let someone die if you had the ability to care for them. Not merely because you just happen to be a
nice person but because you believe it’s the right thing to do. Now a lot of people might agree with the idea
of the social and moral responsibility to care for others. But they might argue that this doesn’t mean
that we should be legally compelled to. But laws, just like moral worldviews are essentially
a list of things we ought and ought not to do, and are generally informed by what we
inherently already believe in as a society. In modern democracies, it’s things like
life and safety and freedom and privacy. I don’t think those kinds of laws would
exist if we weren’t already an empathetic species. Law also in theory provides an impartial and
organized basis by which to think about interpersonal conduct, and it also provides standardized
recourse for disputes and rights violations. And some form of legal system also seems to
be necessary to protect other kinds of rights that aren’t particularly covered by the
social contract. For example, freedom of the press, is not
specifically related to human empathy, but many countries have declared it a fundamental
right. And I’m not sure how you sufficiently enforce
that sort of right without legal and government protection. So yeah, in order for rights to mean anything
in the grand scheme of things, there probably needs to be some kind of legal recourse when
those rights are being violated. Society can condemn and ostracize a murderer
as much as they want, but this doesn’t compensate the families of their victims, nor does it
prevent them from committing more crimes. You need more organized justice for something
like that. One argument I hear a lot from conservatives
is that you cannot have a right to something that must be provided by someone else. This is supposedly a violation of that person's
right to choose their own labor. [SHAPIRO:] You have no right to demand medical
care of me. I may recognize your necessity, I may offer
charity. My friends and I may band together and fund
your medical care, but your necessity does not change the basic math. Medical care is a service and a good provided
by a third party. No matter how much I need bread, I do not
have a right to steal your wallet or hold up the local bakery to obtain it. [T1J:] But this is an inconsistent argument. In America one of our most fundamental rights
is the right to a lawyer and a right to a trial by jury. Both of those things require the services
of other people. The lawyers, the judges, the jury, the court
reporter, and all the other staff. The right to vote requires the services of
many volunteers and government employees. You can’t just autonomously vote, you need
other people to facilitate that for you. Most labor rights must be provided by someone
else. Someone else has to provide you with safe
and ethical working conditions. Someone else usually sends you your paycheck,
and someone else has to make sure they pay you at least a minimum wage. So this idea that something can’t be a right
if it’s provided by someone else is kind of a random and unprecedented argument. And again, this idea is contradicted by the
fact that we provide emergency healthcare to everyone, even when they can’t afford
it. So, we already force people to provide medical
care, usually on the hospital’s dime. And as much as people argue against healthcare
as a right, I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone argue that hospitals should discharge
or refuse care to patients who can’t afford the costs. Except maybe Ron Paul. I think it’s because they understand that
that would be downright cruel. Can you imagine walking into a car dealership
and expecting to leave with a car even when you have no money? You’d be tossed out by security in a heartbeat. Because you don’t have a right to any of
those cars. You do, however, have a right to be cared
for when you are hurt or sick. If you didn’t, there would have been no
incentive for the American Congress to pass the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active
Labor Act in 1986, which is the law that requires hospital emergency care for everyone seeking
treatment. Given that social organizing is clearly not
adequate for enforcing and ensuring access to health care, we need some kind of legal
recourse when this right is violated. So then you might argue, we technically do
provide healthcare, you said it yourself. We just send a bill afterward that they likely
aren’t able to pay. Well besides the fact that requiring someone
to pay for something you know you they can’t afford is an idiotic system, burdening folks
with tremendous amounts of debt and likely stress and suffering for simply pursuing something
they have a legal right to pursue, is in my opinion extremely unethical. But more importantly adequate healthcare is
more than just emergency services. It’s primary care, it’s preventative care,
it’s mental health services, it’s reproductive health services, it’s family and child care,
it’s access to drugs, access to health information, and much more. And in many places, including the United States
these services are not guaranteed to people. Even those with health insurance. Because if your deductible is too high, then
in some cases it’s virtually the same as not having insurance. Many people have health insurance but still
never receive care because they can’t afford the out of pocket costs. And this seems to me to be an example of our
right to a quality standard of health being violated. If you can’t afford something, you do not
have access to it. Now can we just snap our fingers and give
everyone free healthcare and everything works out great. Well obviously not. Health care is an extremely complex system
and is going to require a lot of work and discussion to make it function for everyone. But we should approach the problem with the
given premise and end goal of guaranteeing access to adequate health care for everyone. My guess is that the whole thing will never
work as long as the profit incentive reigns supreme. Because profit-based healthcare usually doesn’t
incentivize good healthcare. No matter how much the government regulates
them, insurance and drug companies will continue forever to do whatever they can to screw over
the people who need healthcare the most, because that is what will make them the most money,
and because healthcare customers are in a compromised position, it is an unbalanced
transaction. They’re not buying T-Shirts or Hamburgers,
they’re buying the drugs that allow them to keep going to work or the procedures that
save their lives. You cannot have a fair negotiation with someone
who literally holds the things that you need to stay alive. Are there roadblocks for this kind of transition? Of course. Will there be tradeoffs and compromises? Probably. You’ll notice I consistently used the phrase
‘adequate healthcare’ rather than amazing, top notch health care. And that’s because it seems fairly likely
that it wouldn’t be possible to provide the absolute best possible health care, with
the latest technologies, and shortest wait times to every single person in any given
country much less the world. And I also think that much of the medical
innovation that we’ve seen has happened largely through marketplace incentives. However I do not believe that that innovation
is worth the massive human suffering and death caused by unequal access to healthcare. I believe quite strongly that a cost barrier
to healthcare is morally wrong and this is just another reason why. Sure markets drive innovation, but working
and middle class people have unequal access to the benefits of that innovation. Are we seriously arguing that it’s okay
for poor and middle class people to die so rich people can have good healthcare? That sounds profoundly immoral to me. So if we have to slow down innovation so less
people die and suffer because they can’t afford health care. That’s a no-brainer of a choice in my opinion. Even if health care was a commodity, human
lives and bodies are certainly not, and shouldn’t be treated as just another numerical factor
in the healthcare equation. All of our systems should put the rights of
people first. I mentioned the fact that in many countries
citizens have the right to an attorney if they’re accused of a crime. And in general, no one challenges this right,
we generally think it’s a good thing. But the situation regarding public defenders
isn’t pretty. Public defenders don’t tend to make a lot
of money and are usually overloaded with cases, which usually means they can’t spend the
time needed to handle cases as well as private lawyers. That said, public defenders still work hard
and do their jobs the best they can. And as I mentioned before this is a right
that must be provided to you by someone else. It’s not a commodity. And because of that, there is increased demand
for the service and undersupply of defenders. There’s government regulation surrounding
budgets and salaries, it’s rarely the first choice of anyone pursuing a career in law. Now I’m no expert on how to fix those problems,
but I’m not convinced that we’re just doomed to have a broken and inefficient system
of public defenders. And I certainly would love to see some progress
in that area. Nevertheless, no one, as far as I’ve seen,
has proposed eliminating public defenders or the right to an attorney. In spite of these issues, we still hold it
as a fundamental right, because that was our premise; that was the goal. And even though it’s not perfect, people
by and large have access to public defenders when they can’t afford attorneys, and it
would be way worse if they didn’t. And that’s how I think we in the United
States should approach healthcare. Every other developed country has done it. And maybe they’re not perfect systems, although
by most measures they seem to be mostly better than what we have here. But by and large, everyone in those countries
has equal access to healthcare, and it would be way worse if they didn’t. We need to set our goal as free or affordable
universal access to healthcare, and then build around that. Because humans have a right to a basic standard
of good health and this can only be achieved by guaranteeing adequate healthcare to all
people. DAS JUS ME DOE. What do you think? Thanks for watching and thanks to Audible
for sponsoring this video. Audible is the leading provider of digital
spoken word entertainment. They’ve got thousands of titles, including
audiobooks, podcasts, comedy, and so much more. I know a lot of you have been spending more
time at home these days, well, this is a perfect opportunity to fill yourself with more stories
and more information, and Audible is the perfect way to do that. With a membership, you can choose 3 titles
every month: 1 audiobook and 2 exclusive Audible Originals you can’t hear anywhere else. You also get access to guided meditation programs,
as well as daily news digests from respected sources like the New York Times and the Wall
Street Journal. If you’d like to give it a test run, how
bout a 30 day trial, just visit audible.com/t1j or text the code ‘t1j’ to 500-500 to get
your first 30 days for free. While making this video, I stumbled upon this
audiobook “Health Justice Now” by the health care activist Tim Faust. It’s a passionate and well-researched takedown
of America’s dysfunctional healthcare system. I’m a few hours into it and I found it particularly
compelling because the author Tim Faust is actually near my age, a not some old dude
like most of the non-fiction authors I’ve experienced. And he has the rare mix of justifiable millennial
outrage, and also actual undeniable expertise on the subject matter. So, check out the audiobook, maybe you’ll
like it. Once again, go to audible.com/t1j or text
t1j to 500-500, to try out Audible for 30 days, which includes an audiobook and 2 audible
originals absolutely free. And remember by supporting sponsors like Audible,
you not only get access to a great service, you also support me and help me take my content
to the next level.
