>In a civilised country universal healthcare should be a right just as emergency healthcare already is.
>
>I'll ignore the obvious anti-American insult and drive directly into the issue of "right".

Insult? where ?


>Rights, in America, are granted to the individual as a restriction on the State's power. How can "health care" possibly fall into the category of a right? I can understand the idea that the State shall make no restriction upon the individual to receive health care. Which I would be all for, btw, as it would make intra-state insurance restrictions and tax code differences unconstitutional. But how can you provide health care and call it a right? It's counter-intuitive. In addition, health care is nothing more than goods and services. If the State guarantees "health care" to an individual then the State has supplanted itself as the boss of all of the health care industry. What of the rights of those business and individuals currently in the industry?

Well tell me why emergency care is a right and healthcare is not a right?? You have rights like having a lawyer when you are arrested, which also is nothing more than services. It is a missconception that here in the netherlands the government is the boss of the healthcare. Its the regulator, nothing more and nothing less. The insurance companies are still commercial as is the rest of the healthcare. The government only forced everyone to insure themselves.