To be clear I'm not saying I think it's a bad idea to have universal health coverage because it's politically contentious. In fact I'm not saying it's a bad idea at all; I think it's a good idea. I just think framing it as a "right" is bad. In my opinion, doing so diminishes things that are actual (and hard-fought) rights, such as non-discrimination and freedom of speech, religion, etc.
> If you're in a remote area, your access to treatment may be of a different quality/difficulty to obtain but everyone in your area will have the same difficulty.
It might be almost or entirely nonexistent (e.g. you live in an extremely remote area, you've hiked on foot into uninhabited terrain, you might have a rare difficult-to-treat disease that would require so many specialists as to deprive others of care, etc.). If there are situations where one might not realistically be able to get health care, why would we frame health care as a "right"? In my opinion it's a fantasy and diminishes the meaning of the word. That's why I was trying to more narrowly pin it down to "non-discrimination of access to health care" in my comment.
> If you're in a remote area, your access to treatment may be of a different quality/difficulty to obtain but everyone in your area will have the same difficulty.
It might be almost or entirely nonexistent (e.g. you live in an extremely remote area, you've hiked on foot into uninhabited terrain, you might have a rare difficult-to-treat disease that would require so many specialists as to deprive others of care, etc.). If there are situations where one might not realistically be able to get health care, why would we frame health care as a "right"? In my opinion it's a fantasy and diminishes the meaning of the word. That's why I was trying to more narrowly pin it down to "non-discrimination of access to health care" in my comment.