Ability to Pay is Out of One's Control: An Argument Against the Commercial Model of Health Care

1. The commercial model of health care states that quality health care (QHC) hinges upon one's ability to pay monetarily for the services of medical professionals.
2. Ability to pay for such health services is determined by one's ability to either acquire money oneself  – for example, through employment – and/or one's ability to solicit charity from others – such as from acquaintances or family members.
3. Among others, the conditions of stable personal employment requires that one be able bodied and able minded (i.e. not disabled or critically ill) and have received years of support from others in the form of constructive upbringing and formative education.
4. Both such conditions are out of one's control in that one cannot choose one's physical capacities and susceptibility and/or immunity to disease before birth (and in many cases after birth), and because one cannot control the actions of others (esp. as an infant, when one is most vulnerable).
5. Soliciting monetary charity from others, be it children from parents or stranger from stranger, is out of one's control for the same reason -- the actions of others are out of one's control.
6. Thus, in either case, the ability to pay monetarily for QHC is out of one's control.
7. Yet, irrespective of one's ability to pay, all humans are mortal, and being mortal, all humans are in need of QHC from time to time in order to continue to lead constructive lives.
8. Either no one deserves QHC, everyone deserves QHC, only those who can pay monetarily for QHC deserve it, or desert hinges upon a hitherto unarticulated matter.
9. If no one deserves QHC, then neither mortal need nor the ability to pay for QHC matters.
10. If everyone deserves QHC, then the commercial model is problematic, for it neglects those mortals who cannot pay for it.
11. If only those who can pay deserve QHC, then mortal need does not matter – what matters is only the chance (out-of-one's-control) circumstance that one is able to pay.
12. Given that QHC depends upon the actions of many individuals other than oneself, including those who developed medical science and care over the course of thousands of years, and given that it is both out of one's control whether one was born today and not (say) 10,000 years ago (or before the development of medical care), it is also out of one's control that one lives in a time wherein health care is a commercial transaction.
13. Thus, one does not deserve QHC simply because one can pay for it – for the historical development and present existence of medical care is out of one's control in the same way that a society of commercial transactions is out of one's control.
14. Thus, we are left with a choice between no one deserving QHC, everyone deserving QHC, or desert hinging upon some other factor than ability to pay.