Hall 1

Hunter Hall
Dr. Josefson
PSCI 220
20 April 2015
Healthcare in the United States According to Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau
An overview of health reform from the White House (2015) shows that the focus of
modern healthcare is about personal control of healthcare, affordability of healthcare, and having
choices within the insurance market. The White House (2015) provides the following bullet
points pertaining to health reform:

Health reform puts American families and small business owners in control of their own

healthcare.
It makes insurance more affordable by providing the largest middle class tax cut for
health care in history, reducing premium costs for tens of millions of families and small
business owners who are priced out of coverage today. This helps over 32 million
Americans afford health care who do not get it today and makes coverage more

affordable for many more. Under the plan, 95% of Americans will be insured.
It sets up a new competitive health insurance market giving tens of millions of Americans
the same choices of insurance that members of Congress will have.

These bullet points show what the most up-to-date emphasis on healthcare is in the United
States. Although these are the most current points of emphasis, it does not in any way mean that
modern healthcare in the United States is flawless in design. Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and
Jean-Jacques Rousseau have varying views that can provide multiple perspectives on healthcare

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in the United States. Likewise, the philosophies of these political philosophers can be analyzed
for suggestions in further healthcare reform.
Thomas Hobbes would not agree with the promotion of a competitive insurance market.
Hobbes identifies competition as the first among three principal causes of quarrel (Hobbes, p.
208). Rather, in order to give every person the same access to healthcare, Hobbes would want
everyone to transfer their right to healthcare to the governing body. Hobbes states, The mutual
transferring of right, is that which men call Contract, (p. 212). Whereas recent healthcare reform
puts families and small businesses in control of their own healthcare, Hobbes would want those
families and small businesses to enter into a contract with the government; thus, the government
as the governing body ensures that everyone has equal healthcare according to the contract.
John Locke takes a relatively different view on the system by going with the majority rather
than the entirety. Locke states, Whosoever therefore out of a state of nature unite into a
community, must be understood to give up all the power, necessary to the ends for which they
unite into society, to the majority of the community, (p. 260). In this case, the majority makes
the decisions for the members of society when those members of society decide that they need
insurance for healthcare. Since the middle-class is the majority class in America, it is still likely
that the middle class tax cuts in modern healthcare reform would still be in place. Lockes system
is more democratic than Hobbes.
Rousseau promotes a system that is more democratic as well, and issues a warning against
entering into the type of system that Hobbes promotes: They all ran to chain themselves, in the
belief that they secured their liberty, for although they had enough sense to realize the advantages
of a political establishment, they did not have enough experience to foresee its dangers, (p.
311). Making it relevant to healthcare, Rousseau is saying that people could potentially rush into

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the system of universal healthcare without giving proper consideration to the rights and liberties
they give up to obtain it. In Hobbes system all rights are given up to the government for
universal healthcare, in Lockes system the rights are given up if desired and the majority rules,
and in Rousseaus system he believes that democracy is true and people should preserve their
natural liberties rather than give them up to the government entirely.

References

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Cohen, M., & Fermon, N. (Eds.). (1996). Princeton Readings in Political Thought. Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press.

Overview of Health Reform. (2015). Retrieved April 19, 2015, from

https://www.whitehouse.gov/health-care-meeting/proposal/whatsnew/overview