I had one of the 24/7 cable-blabber channels serving as white-noise for my office the other day when I saw a comely anchor look up at the ceiling and muse, "I wonder if health care should be a right?" The non-comely guy in the co-anchor chair next to her nearly had an attack of apoplexy, and as he gagged she added, "Just asking" and moved on.

This was not to be the end of it, of course. Later in the day a producer who knew a good thing when she heard it brought in a couple of "experts" to discuss the issue. The word "discuss" has an unusual meaning when applied to these talk channels, where a rational exchange of ideas and a meeting of minds is the last thing that they want. Informative discussion is, you see, considered boring in the world of talk television. What sells are raised voices, belligerence and name-calling. The more, the merrier.

So you pick as your interviewees people at the extreme edges of the debate and let them go at one another. You can even emphasize the pugilistic nature of the event with a countdown clock and bell to signal when the host/referee should pass the microphone from one talker to the next. To address the issue of health care as a right we had a guy representing a group I would characterize as a conservative/libertarian think tank and a gal identified as a doctor with a hospital affiliation.

The guy went first and got my attention by stating right off that he believes everyone does have a right to health care. Given a little more time I would have fallen off my chair but before I lost my balance he quickly added, "And that means everybody is entitled to whatever medical care they want and all doctors have to work for free." Aha, you can't fool me. Sarcasm!

If I were conducting this interview I'd jump in here are suggest now that his "gotcha" moment had passed the guy might want to consider if there was any middle ground which could be the basis for compromise. Instead the host, executing a perfect hair-flip, just passed the mike to the gal, who was completely nonplused.

I've noticed that liberals often come to these discussions willing to engage and are entirely unprepared to handle the non-compromising positions often presented by the conservatives. That's why the conservatives often dominate these "debates". On this day the gal fumbled along and it wasn't until the end of her response that she finally scored what I thought was a key point, noting that we really do, when all is said and done, recognize a right to basic health care, even if we don't admit it.

Every state in the Union has a law requiring that a hospital treat a patient in need who shows up at the door of its emergency room, whether or not she has insurance or any other means of paying. I know this patient "right" has been explicitly posted at every hospital I have even been in.

And frankly, while we all know a doctor who has such a poor bedside manner he should stick to doing research on his lab rats and stay far away from patients, those are rare. Most people become doctors because they want to help others. Yes it's a good profession and provides good financial rewards, great rewards for some specialists. But there are easier ways to make a buck. Medical salaries do not rank with the fortunes made on the trading desks in the financial sector and are nothing compared to CEO salaries at major firms. The bottom line is that most doctors won't turn away a patient in need. In fact, they swear an oath to that effect. So one way or another, we already have universal access to health care.

This is our starting point. While the naysayers wonder if health care should be a right, we have already mandated that it is. Now we must figure out how to pay for it and that includes figuring out how to make it more effective. Today those tasks seem insurmountable. But to those who fight against health care reform, and quote Thomas Jefferson where he railed against oppression and preached revolution, I say read some of Jefferson's other words; "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

We've already decided that men have a right to life. I don't think we sacrifice liberty if we stay healthy while we pursue a little happiness to enjoy it.