Hello. Dr. Keith Smith with you – Surgery Center of Oklahoma. Thank you for joining me in this series.

“Cancel your vacation. I’m sick!”

That’s what somebody really means when they say they have a right to healthcare, isn’t it? People don’t really mean that they have a right to healthcare. What they really mean is they have a right to what is in your wallet or bank account to buy whatever healthcare they need or want due to their own misfortune or poor planning.

“Cancel your vacation. I’m sick!”

I think this is a really good thing to remember when you hear people say everyone has a right to healthcare. Imagine the family that has saved for years perhaps, for a visit with their children to a theme park in Florida or California, for instance. They are approached by some government official who tells them, “You can’t go because someone across town who you don’t know has become ill and we need all the money you were going to spend on this vacation.”

That really is a more honest way to look at the claim that healthcare is a right.

I’m a big fan of charity. There’s a difference, though, between charity and theft. What the government does is violent and wrong. And what people do charitably is admirable and we should see more of that.

We had a family that drove all the way across the United States to have a tonsillectomy performed on their child here at the Surgery Center of Oklahoma paid for with the proceeds of a bake sale at their church. The bake sale was a success because they had a target price. They knew how much they needed to raise.

That’s charity. That’s admirable. When the government gets involved, it looks very, very different. And it is ugly, frankly. And not the way that we should be going with healthcare in the United States, in my opinion.

Thank you for joining me. We will see you next time.