Saying “health care is a right” sounds compassionate, but the meaning is very different from what people assume.
A right means something you can exercise without forcing anyone else to act.
Speech is a right.
Property is a right.
Self-defense is a right.
They require no other person’s labor.
Health care is a service provided by doctors, nurses, researchers, manufacturers, builders, engineers, and support staff.
It has to be produced.
It requires training, time, expertise, equipment, facilities, and resources.
To claim health care as a right is to claim a right to the labor of other people.
And if others must provide it to you whether they choose to or not, that is not a right.
That is ownership over their time, effort, and life.
The idea that people “deserve” goods and services simply by existing implies that someone else must be sacrificed to provide them.
Not paid voluntarily.
Not chosen through exchange.
Forced.
A society cannot function on the belief that one group is morally entitled to the work of another.
That is how every civilization that embraced it ended in collapse:
The moment you treat human beings as resources to be claimed, you have already abandoned the concept of human rights.
Health care is a right, not a privilege. Working families deserve affordable and accessible health care. Period.