No Right to Health Care at Other People's Expense
By David Holcberg (Chicago Tribune, December 6, 2007; San Jose Mercury News, December 22, 2007)

The government has no right to force some individuals, businesses and hospitals to bear the unjust burden of paying for the health insurance of those who lack it. No one has a right to obtain health care--or any other value--at other people's expense. The needs of one individual are not a moral claim on the resources of another. Those who can't afford to pay for their own health care should rely on private charity, not on government coercion of income earners. Claims that such coercion is necessary to make medical care more affordable are wrong; it is the government's longtime interference in the market that has caused medical care costs to skyrocket. Anyone truly concerned with the uninsured is free to help them pay for their insurance, and to persuade others to voluntarily do the same. And anyone truly concerned with lowering the cost of health care should advocate not for more government regulation of the health care industry, but for an end to the government's interference in the field of medicine.