Objectivism and Healthcare

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Introduction

Healthcare is one of the most emotionally charged topics in politics.

People speak of compassion, suffering, “human rights,” and moral duty.
Others speak of costs, incentives, and bureaucracy.

Objectivism cuts through both sentimentality and cynicism with one central principle:

Rights are protections from force — not claims on other people’s labor.

From that principle follows the Objectivist view of medicine, payment, and what a government may—and may not—do.

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Medicine Is a Value — Not a Collective Entitlement

Health is a profound value.
Life requires the ability to act, work, think, and pursue goals.

But a value is not a blank check drawn on other people.

A doctor’s skill is his productive work.
A hospital’s equipment is created wealth.
A drug is the product of years of research and rational effort.

To call healthcare “a right” in the entitlement sense is to say:

someone else must be forced to provide it.

Objectivism rejects that premise completely—because it turns human beings into resources owned by society.

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What Rights Actually Mean

In Objectivism, rights define a moral and legal sphere where an individual is free to act.

— the right to earn
— the right to contract
— the right to own property
— the right to trade value for value

A right is not “a guarantee of results.”
It is a guarantee that no one may stop you by force.

That means you have the right to seek any medical care you choose.
You have the right to refuse treatment.
You have the right to choose your doctor, your insurer, your hospital, your risk, and your priorities.

But you do not have the right to seize another person’s labor through taxation “for your need.”

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“Healthcare as a Right” Means Forced Labor

When the state declares healthcare a “right,” it must answer one question:

Who pays — and who is forced?

If payment is extracted by taxation, then healthcare is funded by coercion.
If services are compelled by regulation, then healthcare is staffed by coerced obedience.

This is not compassion.
It is the initiation of force dressed up as virtue.

Objectivism rejects altruism as a political weapon—because altruism, when enforced by law, becomes a moral permission slip for theft.

That same principle applies across other medical and bodily autonomy issues, including Objectivism and Abortion and Objectivism and Euthanasia: your body is yours — but other people’s earnings are theirs.

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The Government’s Proper Role: Protect Rights, Not Run Medicine

In an Objectivist view, government has one essential function:

to ban the initiation of force and protect individual rights.

That includes enforcing objective laws against:

— fraud (fake cures, false advertising)
— negligence and malpractice (under objective standards of proof)
— physical coercion

But it does not include running hospitals, setting prices, commanding doctors, rationing care, or deciding what treatments you may access.

A government that controls medicine inevitably controls life—because medicine touches every decision from birth to death.

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Why a Free Market Is the Most Humane System

Healthcare is not “too important for the market.”
It is too important for coercion.

A free market means:

— competition to lower costs
— innovation to improve outcomes
— choice among providers and models
— voluntary charity instead of forced sacrifice

This is the same moral principle defended in capitalism: a society of voluntary trade is the only system compatible with human dignity.

The market does not guarantee perfection.
But it does guarantee something morally unique: consent.

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Insurance, Risk, and Responsibility

Much confusion in healthcare comes from treating insurance as “prepaid consumption.”

Insurance, properly understood, is risk management—an agreement you choose, at a price you accept, for contingencies you judge worth covering.

In a free system, different people will choose different levels of coverage.
Some will prioritize maximum security.
Others will accept more risk for lower cost.

Objectivism does not demand that everyone make the same choices.
It demands that choices remain voluntary—and that responsibility remains individual.

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Compassion Without Coercion

Objectivism does not oppose helping others.
It opposes forcing others to help.

In a free society, charity can exist—privately, voluntarily, and proudly.

What Objectivism rejects is the collectivist inversion where need becomes a claim, and virtue becomes an obligation enforced at gunpoint.

If you want to help, help.
If you want to build hospitals, fund research, sponsor care, or donate—do it.

But do not call it “rights.”
Rights are not IOUs written on other people.

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The Core Principle: Life Requires Freedom

Healthcare ultimately comes down to one moral question:

Will the individual be treated as an end in himself—or as a sacrificial animal for others?

Medicine is a noble profession because it applies reason to the protection of human life.

But when medicine is collectivized, it becomes political.
And when it becomes political, it becomes brutal: rationing, waiting lists, price controls, shortages, and the slow death of innovation.

Objectivism chooses a different path:

a system where life is supported by reason, trade, and freedom—not by compulsion.

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In One Sentence

Objectivism upholds healthcare as a vital value and a field of voluntary trade—protecting freedom of choice and bodily autonomy—while rejecting “healthcare as a right” whenever it means forcing others to pay or provide.