Is Health Care a Commodity? A Privilege or Responsibility?

I
To The Editor:
The most stunning question raised in the Oct. 7 debate was “Should health care be considered a commodity?” And like all other commodities (oil, corn, wheat) have their prices set in the marketplace reflecting what the market will bear based on supply and demand? Or as Tom Brokaw asked in a follow up question: “Is health care a right, a privilege, or a responsibility?”
This is the line in the sand between free market economics and government “entitlements.” It is time to put all the options on the table along with the hard fact of their costs. Not just the costs of doing things, but the cost of inaction.
We are a capitalist country and our founding fathers espoused the concept of Enlightened Self Interest. That is Enlightened Self Interest as in “what is good for me and the community at large, not what is good for me and my shareholders.”
Answering the multiple-choice question of right, privilege, responsibility, gets at the heart of the real ideological battleground. A bulkhead against Unenlightened Self Interest must be forged. It doesn’t have to be either or, there could be a third way.
Let us hope that in the struggle to package oneself for general consumption during a general election doesn’t dilute the need to restore a conscious capitalism that places our expertise in making and managing money in the arenas of concern to us all.
JAMES DiMARTINO
Cape May