Plain Dealer asshat Kevin O Brien: Health care is not and cannot be a "right."

Committee Chairman Bishop William F. Murphy wrote that efforts to reform the U.S. health care system "must begin with the principle that decent health care is not a privilege, but a right . . ."

That's a principle based on a false premise.

Life is a right.

It is a gift from God or, if you prefer a nonreligious approach, nature. From the moment we're able to take care of ourselves, other people need not intervene to cause us to continue living. We pay no fee to breathe. We require no one's permission to do so. We owe our lives to no person, and we live as long as our perishable bodies will allow. All by itself, life goes on.

Liberty is a right, too.

Any philosopher worth his salt will tell you that in a state of nature, humans are free. (snip)

Now, what about health? Does it occur naturally?

What occurs naturally is its polar opposite, death. From the day of our conception, each of us is on a downward slope that leads to the day when even the healthiest person's body will fail and die. The experience of thousands upon thousands of years tells us with perfect clarity that good health is not a God-given or naturally occurring right. Earthly immortality is neither granted to us nor achievable by our own efforts.

Nor, it should be obvious, can health care be a gift from God or nature.

All are products of human ingenuity and activity -- of human labor. And no one has a right simply to help himself to the labor of another. We abolished slavery in this country long ago.