After defining “healthcare” as, “the knowledge and experience of healthcare professionals - doctors, nurses, EMT technicians, etc.” he asks the next obvious questions, where does all this knowledge and experience come from, and why do any of us have a “right” to this. These are far and away the most pertinent questions in the debate over healthcare, yet virtually no one else has asked them aloud.
Granted medical school students are readily financed, but the ultimate financial obligation rests with them, they have invested in ("bought") the intellectual capital of a medical education. It also comes from rigorous on the job training. Internships are brutally intense and pay very little, so again there is a big personal investment in the hands-on training required to provide "healthcare…
Next comes the intangible costs, the interpersonal skills, the experience, the communication ability, all acquired at a cost in time and effort.
All of this is bought and paid for. It is someone's property.
Then there is the equipment, and the hospitals themselves, all developed and purchased at market cost, whether it’s the raw land, or the architect or the developer, or the construction workers themselves. And the medical supply companies, and their employees, and the manufacturers who invent, develop, and build the various scanning devices and testing machinery, from X-ray to Cat-scan equipment, and the drug companies’ enormous investment in time and money to bring a new drug to market.
So why DO some people think they have some sort of below market claim on the efforts and costs of others? A "right" to the product of someone else's efforts? Why indeed?