Reddit mentions of What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets

> Community property is OK in certain circumstances. Sometimes it can provide good services and a favorable return to the economy.

How does one measure this "return"?

> I'm saying if a market can handle it, it should.

What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets

You might change your views a bit after reading this book. Even George Will gave it a good review

Review:
"Michael J. Sandel, political philosopher and public intellectual, is a liberal, but not the annoying sort. His aim is not to boss people around but to bring them around to the pleasures of thinking clearly about large questions of social policy. Reading this lucid book is like taking his famous undergraduate course Justice without the tiresome parts, such as term papers and exams." George F. Will

The first thing we need to do is parse through different categories of rights. There are negative rights, which means non-interference or an inability to impede action, and there are positive rights, where the state can compel action and is provided for you by someone else. So, for instance, Freedom of speech is a negative right, the right to an attorney and a trial are positive rights. Healthcare couldn't be considered a negative right, but it could be considered a positive one if you so wish.

However, healthcare doesn't even have to be framed in terms of rights, and I think the need and reliance for every political issue and policy to be framed in that way tends to make every argument a theoretical one and not one of actual governance. As /u/buffalo_pete mentions, it's a service and we can easily consider it as being one that a civil, developed country that can afford it without any real negative impact ought to provide for its citizens as part of the 'contract' (and I use that term sparingly and metaphorically) in its primary role of protecting its citizens. Welfare isn't a right, it's a communal decision that society has made which says that it's not okay for a society to let their citizens starve to death and die. Law enforcement isn't a right, but it's a service provided by the government which is vital and necessary to a functioning society. Healthcare could be more adequately argued in those terms rather than trying to convince people that it's an inalienable right.

Basically, any kind of universal healthcare ought to be seen as merely a piece of legislation and governance and argued on those terms instead of entering the theoretical quagmire of arguing over if it's a right or not. Is it effective in what it sets out to do? Does it raise the level of care for the populace? Is it cost effective? Are there possible alternatives that would be better? Etc. That's what the legislative branch of the government is there for, to argue over the merits of particular policies, not to decide for themselves what are rights and what aren't, and whether the legislation infringes on them. Those are questions for the courts to decide after legislation has been passed.

>It just seems like to me anyways that we as a nation have decided capitalism is a lifestyle choose rather than a economic model.

You might be interested in reading political philosopher Michael Sandel's book What Money Can't Buy: the Moral Limits of Markets where he argues that we're turning into a market society as opposed to a market economy.