While the media new and old spend time, ink and electrons discussing the relative merits of the O-Care website and the effect it had on Black Friday and whether or not Johnny and Jane can get insurance before or after, the real issue at hand is being ignored. This argument over health insurance is an old one and it only has relationship to health care in the way a sneeze is related to a cold.

Health insurance provided by the government is only a symptom of the still raging question of unresolved politics. The unresolved question is the question of Natural Rights. As old a political issue as there is and we are truly fighting over it now.

If the Affordable Care Act can insert into the American psyche and law books the belief that health care is a right, then the standard of natural rights has suffered a significant blow.

Our founding documents espouse natural rights when they talk of being…” endowed by our creator with certain…” Don’t get trapped by the word “creator” either. It doesn’t matter if your creator is The Creator or just your Daddy; you were endowed with those rights as a birthright. It was not a function of government that supplied you with those rights it was a function of you coming into the world.

A Natural Right is a right I can avail myself of without imposing on you. I can speak freely but that right does not go so far as to impose on you the obligation to listen, much less agree. If the ACA and its proponents can convince you that you have a right to health care then they will have convinced you that someone has the obligation to provide it to you.  Health care cannot be a Natural Right because it presumes that some person can be forced by law to provide that care.

If there is no available doctor or nurse or physician’s assistant to care for you in your time of need by what means will you exercise your right to health care? If the shortage of care providers is predictable and the government is charged with providing for your health care rights then the government will have to force some young man or woman into the healthcare field in order to provide for that right. But what then of the right of the bright young woman who has a mind for chemistry and wanted to be a chemical engineer instead of a Doctor? Isn’t it pretty lucky that the Obama administration and the lap dog legislature have allowed the Federal Government to be the only source for educational loans? “Sure Janey,” says the O-bot in charge of student loans, “we will be happy to help you with college if and only if you decide to be a Doctor or Nurse. Otherwise, I don’t think there is enough money for your loan to get approved.”

These are the reasonable outcomes of the ACA and the acceptance that rights are given to man by man. If you stick to the thing that made America exceptional, the concept of Natural Rights, you know that your rights end where mine begin and you are obligated to take care of yourself in ways complex and fundamental.

This is the argument we should be having over the issue of health care and health insurance. And, this is the argument the right has been having with the left for a millennia or so.

As long as we fight over the symptoms we are distracted from curing the disease.