I'm sure you've seen this posted on your homepage:

No one should die because they cannot afford health care, and no one should go broke because they get sick. If you agree, please post this as your status for the rest of the day.

I've certainly felt an upsurge of sentiment on this score. And I doubt that that upsurge will go away.

This is not just about health care, though. There is a change of mores occurring in the US, with implications both promising and daunting.

Individual responsibility, to be sure, is not disappearing, but the idea of health care as a right will help to solidify a new meaning of the word "right."

Many others have noticed that "rights" used to imply a freedom from government interference. And that they are coming to mean an entitlement to social support.

This change comes with some risks, economic and social. New rights, however, can lead to both economic and social inefficiencies and efficiencies. We should not pretend that the two conversations are unconnected nor, alternatively, that they always point in the same direction.