Health care a "privilege" - owning guns a "right"

[EnglishPete]

Health care is a means to an end - i.e. better health - so I think it's a cogent point,

But better health for whom? If person A is healthy, why should they care that person B (who might be from a different social class, gender, race, etc.) is sick? If mere instinctive compassion were enough, we wouldn't be having these discussions to begin with. You can't answer this question without some kind of moral framework.

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I highly doubt that much good will come out of US healthcare policy as long as this assumption is maintained.

That's my point: "Health care as infrastructure" is a corrective to this assumption. Some people are healthy and others are not at any given time, but none of us is free of the risk of being maimed or struck by illness without warning and all of us face the costs and consequences of aging. All of us need this massive system of training, equipment, buildings, and organizations to help us remain as healthy and functional as possible. Few of us have any hope of covering our individual costs under any circumstances that we might face, but to even allocate most of these costs at the individual level in the first place doesn't make much sense.

[EnglishPete]

As for absolute distinction that right libertarians sometimes make between positive and negative rights where do property rights fit into that. After all if someone has been robbed or is owed a delinquent debt and they report it to the police and/or to the courts what response would they want? Would they want the police and courts to turn round to them and say "what are you complaining to us for? Property rights are negative rights. If you think someone else has robbed you/defrauded you/squatted on your property that's purely between you and him, nothing to do with the government"

So are property rights to be considered positive rights or negative rights.