Suzi Wizowaty

Vermont's vigorous populist movement for health care reform has rallied behind the slogan, "Health care is a human right." The unspoken follow-up is "and we demand our rights!" Demands generate a lot of energy.

But the language of demand doesn't speak to me as much as the language of civic responsibility. The language of demand reflects a sense of entitlement. Demands say: you must give this to me. The implication here is, This is your problem and you have to fix it. (How, with what money is also your problem.) It obscures the truth that as a society-wide concern, the provision of health care requires a society-wide fix--that is, a fix by us. Ironically, the language of demand, while it may feel empowering, reflects a giving up of shared responsibility, which is ultimately disempowering.

Is health care a human right? Perhaps. But what if, instead, we consider health care a public good, as does every other industrialized country in the world? Then we all have the responsibility to provide it. As with education, fire and police protection, social security, unemployment insurance and other public goods, we all have access, and we all pay for it. As with education, we will have to decide how much we as a society can provide everyone. If you have the resources, you can always buy more; you can go to a private school, and you can buy cosmetic surgery. That particular inequity is the price we pay for living in a capitalist country, with all its advantages and disadvantages. But democracy is the best antidote. As a nation, or merely as a state, we can choose to acknowledge--and support--health care as a public good. We can say, Yes, we want it, and we're willing to pay for it with a broad-based, progressive tax/fee/premium, whatever word feels least objectionable. We have a voice, and in the end, one right we can exercise, to make our voices heard, is the right to vote.