Dr Oz says uninsured ‘don’t have right to health’ but should get 15-minute checkups in ‘festival-like setting’

Pennsylvania Republican Senate candidate Dr Mehmet Oz has said he does not believe Americans have a right to health care, but he thinks the uninsured should have access to 15-minute checkups in a “festival-like setting”.

The celebrity doctor made the eyebrow-raising comments while speaking at the National Governors Association winter meeting in 2013.

He pitched governors on the idea of working with local health providers to host 15-minute screenings "in a festival-like setting" that would be inexpensive for the state and the participating hospitals.

He noted that when he held similar events in the past, many of the people who took advantage of the service had jobs but did not have health care coverage.

"Give them a way of crawling back out of the abyss, of darkness, of fear, of not having the health they need, and give them an opportunity," he said. "They don't have a right to health, but they have a right to access, to get that health."

It's unclear how Dr Oz justifies his confusing position that Americans do not have a right to health but do have a right to access health care. The Constitution demands the government provide health care in only limited capacities — like providing care to prisoners — and does not mandate care or even access beyond those exceptions.

It's also unclear how a 15-minute physical would ultimately benefit someone without insurance. If a doctor were to find a person had an ailment, it would still leave the individual without options — other than taking on massive medical debt — for seeking treatment, and with the burden of knowing they're sick.

Approximately 31 million Americans — around 10 per cent of the country — is uninsured.

Dr Oz's more conservative position is contrary to his stance on healthcare prior to becoming a Republican political candidate.

CNN reviewed the doctor's statements over more than a decade and found that he regularly supported healthcare mandates for "everyone ... to be in the system" and boosted government-provided health coverage for poor Americans and minors.

In the past the doctor praised the healthcare systems in countries like Germany and Switzerland, which have mandatory universal health care facilitated by private companies.

Despite his past statements, Dr Oz appears to now be falling in line with Republican talking points on healthcare. In a highly-mocked campaign ad attacking his opponent, Democrat John Fetterman, a narrator mocks an image of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez holding a sign reading "free healthcare for everyone!"

"Socialised medicine?" the narrator says. "Where did he get these crazy ideas?"

Apparently Dr Oz knows, because he has praised them himself in the past.