Social Justice and Health Care

The Democrats’ celebratory mood last week over their major legislative victory on health care was perhaps dampened when Cuba’s communist leader, Fidel Castro, endorsed and praised it, and even chided the US for taking two centuries to “approve something as basic as health benefits for all.” He wrote, “It is really incredible that 234 years after the Declaration of Independence ... the government of that country has approved medical attention for the majority of its citizens, something that Cuba was able to do half a century ago." (Well, the Declaration of Independence does not say that a government should be in the business of providing health care, that’s why. It states explicitly, however, that it is the duty of a government to secure and preserve individual rights and liberties.)

But if there is a hint of moral indignation on the part of the Democrats over Castro’s endorsement and the implication that their health care efforts is nothing less than socialized medicine, they should revisit their social justice argument that is at the core of their health care legislation. When President Obama campaigned for the passage of the bill on the argument that 32 million Americans are without medical insurance, he was demanding social justice for all where the well-off should be required to rescue those who are not insured. It’s the same argument that made Speaker Nancy Pelosi declare that health care is a basic right and must be possessed by all. And it is the same argument that Cuba has used to justify its free health care and education for all its citizens. But as it also subsidizes food, housing, utilities and transportation, “which have earned Cuba global praise,” the Cuban government realizes that these programs are “no longer sustainable given Cuba's ever-struggling economy.”

Social justice, in its collective terms, aims for equalizing the distribution of opportunities and resources (and, in the case of government programs, of equalizing entitlements), instead of equalizing access to them. Yes, everyone is equal, but equal in entitlements, not in rights and liberties. This can only create a herd mentality, leading to the establishment and perpetuation of a strong state against weak individuals. Instead of encouraging ambition, dignity, pride, and individul assertiveness, social justice promotes sluggishness, passivity, and dependence as virtues.