In many countries, medical spending is limited by restricting options for the elderly. For example, in Great Britain, as Michael Barone notes, "if you want a hip replacement at age 57, well, you’re just too old." Would that be legal in America? Would it run afoul of our age-discrimination laws? If health care is "a right" as our President thinks, wouldn’t that mean American laws about rights must apply?
A second, related, point. People on the Left in America like to frame the issue by saying "health care must be a right, not a privilege, in America." Is that phrase helpful? In a free country, the government does not have the right to say you can’t go to the doctor. The only reason why the governmnet would deny that right to people is if it rations health care-something that would be done, ironically, in the name of making health care a "right." Under Britain’s national health service, people over 57 don’t have the right to have hip replacements.
Andrew Busch has a nice short article on the question of the right to health care in the latest Claremont Review of Books.
However, if your last name was Kennedy, Clinton, Obama, Sharpton, Jackson, Pelosi, Reid, Frank, Dodd, Schumer, Murtha or Biden and you were over the age of 57, you would qualify for the hip replacement.
Can one have hip replacement if one is not hip to begin with?
Cowgirl you said it well. We worry about bonuses for AIG but how about the obscene money Congress has been spending and for whom--certainly not the lowly tax payer. Congress should take the lead and cut their expenses 10% and that would be a very patriotic act. Congress should either lead or get the hell out of the way for those who can.