American Values and Health Reform-Health Affairs Blog

by Chris Fleming

During the current health reform debate, both Democrats and Republicans have often made their case in terms of values such as liberty, justice, and equality. One example has been the Republican opposition to the “individual mandate” – requiring everyone to purchase health insurance if “affordable” coverage is available – which Senator John Kyl of Arizona called “a stunning assault on liberty.”

Is the individual mandate consistent with American values? In an essay in the Hastings Center Publication “Connecting American Values With Health Reform,” philosopher Paul Menzel answers yes. Without an individual mandate, it would be unjust to require hospitals to provide acute care to all comers, he writes. It would also be unjust to bar insurers from excluding people with pre-existing conditions, as most proposals to achieve universal coverage would do, argues Menzel, a professor at Pacific Lutheran University.

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