Health Care for Children and Rawls

A major debate is going on right now in American politics as to whether the United States government should provide free health insurance to all Americans, potentially resulting in higher taxes for the wealthier. Many have criticized this bill on grounds that it intrudes on individual rights, that government should not intervene too much in people's affairs, that the free market manages health care better, or simply that it counts as "socialism" and is therefore wrong (some without even explaining why). I will argue, from the viewpoint of Rawls's Theory of Justice, that health care should be provided free for all children, possibly at the tax expense of the wealthy. I will suspend complete judgment on health care for all, but argue that there is a case to be made that Rawls's theory would require free government-supported health care for all.

It is the view of many in the fiscal conservative movement that the United States has enough mobility that people's incomes are a good indicator of how hard they work, i.e. someone must be poor because they did not work hard, or rich because they worked very hard. But it is impossible to argue that anyone under 16, who is not allowed to work (at least in Massachusetts - the adjust age might be adjusted depending on the exact laws about child labor), should be held at all responsible for a lack of money. But if their parent, whether due to laziness, misfortune, or lack of opportunity, does not have enough money to pay for their child's health care, that minor is forced to go without health care regardless of their actions. A society following Rawls's principle of justice would not allow this to happen. Arguing directly from Rawls's Original Position, a being would not know whether it would be one of these children, and so it would argue for a system in which all children are given health care. As for adult health care, one might argue that all adults who do not have enough money for their own health care did so out of conscious choices. In this case, they had the opportunity for health care, and Rawls should be satisfied. For a Rawlsian society still requires certain responsibilities of its participants, and so actual resources are contingent upon the participants willingness to be part of the society, and Rawls would really only require a maximin of opportunity for resources, not resources themselves. Yet if one believes that socioeconomic position at birth has any effect upon socioeconomic position later in life (i.e. that we have not yet established perfect and complete mobility), the same argument applies, and so all should be given health care. In either case, the money of the most wealthy has no effect on the plight of the least, and so following the maximin principle, there is nothing against taking it out of their hands to use it for health care for the poor.

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopics/health_insurance_and_managed_care/health_care_reform/index.html?scp=1-spot&sq=universal%20health%20care&st=cse