To those of you who read my first letter on health care and rights, I want to first thank you.

I received one common criticism regarding that letter, which was that under Obamacare, doctors, nurses, and other health care providers still get paid, so nobody is forcing them to provide health care for free.

However, if we look at who is paying for Obamacare, my argument does show that Obamacare violates the personal liberty of many Americans.

First, we must consider what it means to “provide” health care. Obviously, doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals are providers of this service. But in a sense, whoever pays for health care also becomes a provider.

Think of the way that we say that a family’s primary breadwinner provides for her or his family; the person incurring the cost of health care provides the means necessary to obtain the service, and so becomes the provider of health care.

Thus, when someone is forced to pay for another person’s health care, the person paying is being forced to provide that health care. So who pays for Obamacare?

Most simply, Obamacare is funded by fees and taxes. A significant portion of the funding comes from annual fees on health insurance providers, as well as a Medicare tax on high-income ($200,000 ) Americans. Since insurance providers get their money from the people who buy their insurance coverage, this annual fee on insurance providers really charges the people who already buy their own insurance.

Also, the majority of the high-income people who are paying the Medicare tax already either pay for their own medical coverage or share this cost with their employer.

So, high-income Americans are paying for Obamacare through their own personal income and through the fees imposed on their health insurance company. Through these fees and taxes, the law under Obamacare forces people who already pay for their own health insurance to pay for coverage for the people who cannot or will not provide their own.

Since health care is not a natural right, it certainly makes sense that any American who is being covered by federally-subsidized insurance should pay for it.

Unfortunately, Obamacare forces people who already have health care to provide coverage for those who don’t. As honorable as it is for the comparatively wealthy to pay for the comparatively poor, forcing them to do so is still a violation of their liberty.

By paying, the wealthy are providing; as I have already argued, it is a violation of one person’s liberty to force them to provide health care for another person.

I don’t mean to say that the wealthy should not choose to provide for the poor, but it is unacceptable for anyone to force them to do so. By doing exactly that, Obamacare violates the universal human right of liberty, which the entire American system of government is built to protect.

CASEY VANDENBERG

SOPHOMORE, PHILOSOPHY MAJOR