Contrary to what people like Senator Kennedy think, health care is not a right per se (at least not in the context which statists try to frame the discussion).  What exactly is a "right?"  Let's consider James A. Sadowsky's definition:

When we say that one has the right to do certain things we mean this and only this, that it would be immoral for another, alone or in combination, to stop him from doing this by the use of physical force or the threat thereof. [1]

Certainly one has a "right" to seek health care; however it does not mean that he or she can force others to provide it.  Let's consider Ayn Rand's position:

Any alleged "right" of one man, which necessitates the violation of the rights of another, is not and cannot be a right.[2]

Let's suppose that the state were to coerce doctors in providing health care free of charge.  Such an edict would in fact violate doctors' rights.  The doctor's labor belongs to the doctor.  The doctor may either voluntarily provide his or her labor or exchange it for other goods and services, but to coerce the doctor to provide it is in fact a violation of his or her rights.  Locke puts it best:

[E]very man has a property in his own person. This nobody has any right to but himself. The labour of his body and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the state that nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property. It being by him removed from the common state nature placed it in, it hath by this labour something annexed to it that excludes the common right of other men. For this labour being the unquestionable property of the labourer, no man but he can have a right to what that is once joined to. . . .[3]

Now let us suppose that the doctor is paid in exchange for his or services through funds obtained through taxation.  Even in this scenario, a violation of rights occurs, i.e. through taxation.  As Murray Rothbard puts it:

Only the government obtains its income by coercion and violence i.e., by the direct threat of confiscation or imprisonment if payment is not forthcom­ing. This coerced levy is "taxation."[4]

These funds are initially earned through voluntary exchange by individuals.  The state then confiscates a portion of these funds, i.e. taxes it.  As Locke has shown, the funds, the fruit of one's labor, belong to the individual.  To take them by force is to violate the individual's rights.

Attempts to declare health care as a "right" are attempts to justify "universal health care" coverage.   However, in every instance the means of achieving the end involve the violation of rights.  A right by definition cannot necessitate the violation other rights.  The mantra of "universal health care" coverage is the result of the ethical laziness that is utilitarianism.

[1] James A. Sadowsky, S.J., “Private Property and Collective Ownership,” in Tibor Machan, ed., The Libertarian Alternative
[2] Ayn Rand, "Man's Rights"
[3] John Locke, An Essay Concerning the True Origin, Extent, and End of Civil Government, in Two Treatises of Government
[4] Murray N. Rothbard, For A New Liberty