Is health care a basic right or is it a privilege? I'd like to hear your points of view.

The side of the health care professional.

1. The health care industry is a business. The bottom line is profit.
2. Taking care of people is expensive.
3. It is not the fault of Doctors, Nurses, Pharmacists, etc., that the cost of health care is rising. It is the insurance companies fault. The way items have to itemized to even collect the going rate from an Insurance company is the cause and effect.

From the side of the Patient.

1. Please help me my child is dying.
2. I live in America, what do you mean I'm denied.
3. I need medicine.

True Story:

A man enters a Walgreen's. He goes to the back of the store to where the Pharmacy counter is located. He informs the Pharmacist that he has cancer and is in terrible pain. When the Pharmacist tried to calmly explain to the man that he was sorry and could do nothing for him, the cancer patient tells the Pharmacist he has a gun. The gun man, told the pharmacist how he recently lost his insurance, since his former employer obligation to continue coverage on him had expired. Already thousands of dollars in debt, he could no longer get his medications. The gun man asked if everyone, except for the pharmacist, to leave the store. He then explained his intentions were not to harm anybody. He just needed something for the pain. When the employees made it out of the store, they swiftly called 911. In the meantime, the man demanded Oxycontin and Lorasapan. [Two common medications used in cancer hospice care. Oxycontin is for pain and Lorasapan is for vomiting after chemotherapy.] The pharmacist supplied the man with his demands and was released by the gun man. After a 15 minute stand off, where the man had his fingers pointed to his head to imply he might kill himself, the police gave him some room. The police watched the man take the necessary amount allowed the man for his condition. Once the man became more subdued and relaxed, the police immediately placed him in the ambulance to be taken to the Hospital. The man ended up in the Intensive Care Unit. Where the news then said he was in critical condition. He's dying from cancer. Apparently, this man's only remaining option, was to become a ward of the county and state as an inmate, to live out the rest of his days without unbearable and horrific pain.  Now,you tell me because I want to know, is health care a right or a privilege in America?  Is this what you would want for a love one of yours or perhaps even you?

I am not sure where I stand on this issue. Maybe I'm not wise enough to contemplate all the outcomes. My heart conflicts with the practical side of my mind. How can anyone let this man suffer? Why should he have to commit a crime to get the painkillers he needed? Is this what its come too? What can be done or should anything be done to fix this system? Many health care officials I meet, think the health care system isn't broken. So why fix it?

In order to fix the system or not fix it, someone needs to decide if health care is a right or a privilege.

A homeless man with no health insurance, who is suffering from an overactive thyroid which causes the muscles behind his eye to swell, collects change on a subway platform in New York City. President Barack Obama will Tuesday give Americans an honest assessment of their grim economic plight but conjure up hopes of a brighter future on the grand stage of his debut address to Congress.