Well this is slow. Let's make this interesting and politicise it up in here.
What are your opinions on universal healthcare? Is healthcare a basic human right or not?
If there weren’t so many examples against it, I might argue for a pure free market solution. But in practice it doesn't seem to work for healthcare.
The American health-care system is completely broken and wrapped up in red tape. I read that they spend 1/3 of the money just on administrating it, which is much more wasteful than most socialised healthcare. On the other hand, I don't agree with countries that have socialised healthcare but also prevent private healthcare. I think much of Canada organises it this way.
Maybe universal healthcare would be improved if it didn't cover self inflicted damage such as smoking and overeating.
I'm not sure about it being a basic human right. I'd have to side with no but I don't feel strongly about that.
There is no way that healthcare is a human right. In fact any economic right is a violation of other people's inalienable rights because something, in this case healthcare, must be taken away from them. We should not be promoting socialist values in the guise of human rights.
However if a country decides democratically that some healthcare should be socialised then so be it.