To the editor:

While I can appreciate Devin Walton’s concern for the poor, his understanding of what rights are and how medical progress is achieved is sorely lacking. An inherent right, as our constitution was written to protect, can by definition only be such as we can work on our own. I have a right to health care only so far as I can treat myself. To claim otherwise makes slaves of doctors, nurses, pharmacists or anyone else who can provide treatment.

Sadly, a poor example has been set for Mr. Walton by plenty of people – politicians, advocates for this, that, and the other, sometimes even teachers – by claiming that all sorts of things are rights. We hear regularly how education, food, jobs, higher-paying jobs, and yes, health care are rights. To force anyone – teachers, farmers, business owners, etc. – to provide for me any of these things beyond what I can do for myself is contradictory to the standards of liberty. If Mr. Walton insists that health care is a right, then surely he will not object if I lay claim to that right by sending my next medical bill to him.

Also, allowing “the rich to purchase the best health care in the world, while the poor die of malnutrition and preventable diseases,” is, nevertheless, still the best way to achieve the medical progress necessary to help the very poor Mr. Walton is so concerned about.

Mark A. Lottinville,

Lawrence