What makes Health Care a Right?

[FrenchieCat]

Answer:

The Preamble of the Constitution
where Health Care is mandated!

The Preamble to the United States Constitution is a brief introductory statement of the fundamental purposes and guiding principles which the Constitution is meant to serve. In general terms, it expresses the intentions of its authors. On occasion, courts have referred to it as reliable evidence of what the Founding Fathers thought the Constitution meant and what they hoped it would achieve.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preamble_to_the_United_Sta...

We the People of the United States,
in Order to form a more perfect Union,
establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility,
provide for the common defence,promote the general Welfare,
and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,
do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Welfare - welfare /ˈwɛlˌfɛər/ Show Spelled Pronunciation Show IPA

–noun 1. the good fortune, health, happiness, prosperity, etc., of a person, group, or organization;
well-being: to look after a child's welfare; the physical or moral welfare of society.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Welfare

<--FOUNDING FATHER of the United States of America!


Certainly those folks who believe that the reference to a well armed militia gives the right for individuals to bear arms, also believe that promoting the general welfare of its citizenry as stated in the Preamble to the Constitution certainly means that government determines that we, as citizens of this country, have a right to health care. period.

[The_Casual_Observer]

1. In civilized countries it goes without saying/argument that the population

in entitled to health.

[FrenchieCat]

3. Well if some need "proof" here.....

There it is!

Hoping the trolls open this thread.

[grantcart]

20. Europeans, even the conservatives, are simply dumbfounded that this

is even a matter of discussion.

[Canuckistanian]

31. We here in Canada certainly consider it a right

And it's not even in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms, either.

[panader0]

2. Yes K&R

[Mr. Blonde]

4. Does the preamble actually have weight?

Not that it matters a great deal since providing for the common welfare is mentioned in the clearly binding Art. I Sec. 8, and the Hamiltonian view of that section has won out.

Just that we do have to use the proper parts of the Constitution to get things done at the federal level.

[Bill219]

5. You should put this on Twitter

There are a bunch of us libs over there that can drive this message

[FrenchieCat]

8. I don't twitter, but you should go ahead!

I'd love for this to spread!

[Bill219]

11. I'll tweet it before I turn in for the night

[cherokeeprogressive]

6. Who's skills will you avail yourself of in your march to exercise that right?

Are you of the belief that medical school should be provided for free to EVERYONE who qualifies?

Do we train teachers and administrators to pick out the smart kids when they're in elementary or jr. high so they can be shunted into the high schools that have curriculum advanced enough to allow them to survive medical school? What if there isn't one in their city, or county? Take them out of the home?

Are you ready to make someone suffer monitarily and physically so that you can exercise your right to health care?

What if a person is SMART enough to be a doctor but chooses to be a professional baseball player instead? Or a driver for UPS? Or a boxer?

As I said in another thread, I can get behind the notion that things like clean air, clean water, and food can be human rights, because they exist in nature. Believing that health care is a human right though, means you require that a person suffer through more than a decade of inhumane hard work while someone else has to spend a fortune to sponsor their education before we can avail ourselves of that right.

I can't wrap my mind around that.

[boppers]

14. Free Med School? Yes.

Free College for everyone. It would totally transform our society.

Can you wrap your mind around that much?

How about free K-12 education?

[polmaven]

18. So, help me out here...

Do you consider health care to be a privilege? If so, for whom? And who is not entitled to that privilege, and why?

[Cha]

7. What else could it possibly

mean? Thanks, Frenchie..pretty cool the way you set this up for our reading pleasure

[mindwalker_i]

9. Personally, I don't see healthcare as a right

The constitution was written before anything resembling the hospitals today, or the doctors, or the rest of the "system." As such access to today's healthcare system was not a part of the constitution.

However, as a society we can make that decision that we will give everybody access to heathcare since it benefits us, as a society. By providing access, not as a "right" but just as how we decide to make our world, we give everybody that much more of a chance to reach their full potential without being snuffed out by something that need not have done that. As a society, if people of outstanding talent have the chance to develop their abilities, we benefit as a society more often than not.

Maybe it's not a "right," we're just better people.

[FrenchieCat]

10. "not as a "right" but just as how we decide to make our world"????

Ok.

[intheflow]

15. What about unalienable rights, as defined in the Declaration of Independence?

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

It's unfortunate that Right to Lifers have co-opted a good phrase, because each of us has an inherent, unalienable right to life. Jefferson may have been referring to people not being cut down in the streets by the Red Coats, but is that loss of life somehow more important than, say, a man who dies of an easily curable cancer because he waited too late to go to a doctor because he couldn't afford it? Or perhaps Jefferson was being more poetic and he was talking about a right to a life free from a yoke of economic oppression. But again, the cost of healthcare is a yoke of economic oppression for most people, so the argument for accessible and affordable healthcare being a right can again be drawn.

[Will E Orwontee]

24. Inalienable right? Definitely No . . .

Posted by intheflow

. . . because each of us has an inherent, unalienable right to life . . . so the argument for accessible and affordable healthcare being a right can again be drawn.

You are operating from an incorrect foundation of "inalienable." Inalienable really has nothing to do with the present status of a right or really, even a right's present violation; it is a concept significant only at the genesis of the social compact . . . The people's original surrender of certain powers / rights to a government that they are establishing. Once the government has been established the status of inalienable rights becomes more of a founding / fundamental principle to govern governmental action.

Certain rights are deemed so important, such an intrinsic part of being human, no person can legitimately surrender (or transfer) the care of these rights to another. To Locke, these were life, liberty and estate (property). Jefferson, dancing on the edge of plagiarism, deemed them, "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

An important point that speaks directly to your argument; the concept of inalienable rights also supposes the legitimacy of said government; no legitimate government would accept the surrender of those rights.

The argument you are making, that government should be the caretaker of our life, actually stands in opposition to the founder's ideal of inalienable rights.

[andym]

12. Wonderful post! K&R!

[intheflow]

13. Healthcare is also a right as it "provides for the common defense."

In the age of pandemics, the sooner people get treated for symptoms the less likely serious communicable diseases will spread. Healthcare is a common defense against epidemics.

Great post, FrenchiCat!

[Orsino]

16. It doesn't have to be, and it demonstrably isn't, in America.

It should be a right, or a privilege of living in an industrialized nation. We have the capability, but so far we lack the will to defy our corporate masters who want to keep us divided.

Single payer is the way to go.

[branders seine]

17. we are born with bodies

[FrenchieCat]

19. true dat.......

guess that's why the founding fathers were concerned about our general welfare, body included!

[harun]

21. I see it as doing what is right. If no one decides to go to school to be

a doctor, a nurse, a chemist, etc. Then we don't have a health care system even if we think it is a right.

That being said all those people who do go to school to create the health care system are helped at least partially by tax payer funds. Same with hospitals and tools used in research, one could go on and on. So at least at some level no one could deny the tax payers have helped create the system we have today and are due usage of it as well.

I think the best answer is still a single payer system where all groups with means pay in to it a portion and that's what we get.

[midnight]

22. Go to Health Care as A Civil Right at Kucinich.us and please sign.

There is only one true health care public option: Single payer. It covers everyone, all basic health care needs, with doctor of choice. No more premiums, co-pays or deductibles. All health care assets in America would become not-for-profit. The bill already exists. It is HR 676. Congressman John Conyers and I wrote the bill. Our bill has the support of 85 co-sponsors in the House. And it is backed by a growing national movement of labor, doctors, and nurses. The movement needs you. Please join me for tomorrow’s national conference call at 10:00pm EDT. Please call toll-free 1-800-230-1096.

The hour has arrived to begin anew the Civil Rights Movement, this time for Health Care for All. I am calling upon you to become a force in this movement. Go to Health Care as A Civil Right at Kucinich.us to learn how you can circulate a single-payer petition and organize in your community. Please help fund this effort. Go to Kucinich.us now, contribute.http://dprogram.net/2009/09/10/health-care-is-a-civil-r... /

[Will E Orwontee]

23. A right? No . . .

I think it is dangerous to define healthcare as a right; to do so dilutes what the founder's embraced as the concept of what a right is. A right isn't "given" to us by the government; a right is a power retained by the people . . . A right is an exception of government powers and usually, an exception of powers not granted. As Hamilton said explaining the Federalist's opposition to adding a bill of rights to the Constitution:

I . . . affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and to the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed Constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers not granted; and, on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do? Why, for instance, should it be said that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed?

Federalist 84

To argue that a "right" can also be a government mandate to force someone to provide something, a tangible good or service to another person, is not in alignment with constitutional principle.

[Uncle Joe]

26. Hamilton's question seems exceptionally naive.

"Why, for instance, should it be said that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed?"

Section 1 Article 1 of the Constitution.

All legislative powers herein granted shall be invested in a Congress of the United States which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives."

That's a lot of power; to create law, history has shown the heady dynamic of power does indeed corrupt, without those Bill of Right protections what would have prevented a corrupted Congress from enacting law giving them selves the power to stifle freedom of speech and press, etc. etc.

Maybe this paragraph of Federalist 84 explains Hamilton's naivete.

"Nothing need be said to illustrate the importance of the prohibition of titles of nobility. This may truly be denominated the corner-stone of republican government; for so long as they are excluded, there can never be serious danger that the government will be any other than that of the people"

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry at that bolded part, of course we have the advantage of 20/20 hindsight watching amoral mega-corporations with the obtainment of virtual personhood and their money is = to speech power become super citizens, on the other hand, even in Hamilton's day the definition of what constituted the "people" was greatly limited.

[Will E Orwontee]

28. Naiveté?

No, not naiveté, just a statement of principle springing from the profound uniqueness of the proposed Constitution and how it honors the principle of the sovereign people.

"It has been several times truly remarked that bills of rights are, in their origin, stipulations between kings and their subjects, abridgements of prerogative in favor of privilege, reservations of rights not surrendered to the prince. Such was MAGNA CHARTA, obtained by the barons, sword in hand, from King John. Such were the subsequent confirmations of that charter by succeeding princes. Such was the Petition of Right assented to by Charles I., in the beginning of his reign. Such, also, was the Declaration of Right presented by the Lords and Commons to the Prince of Orange in 1688, and afterwards thrown into the form of an act of parliament called the Bill of Rights. It is evident, therefore, that, according to their primitive signification, they have no application to constitutions professedly founded upon the power of the people, and executed by their immediate representatives and servants. Here, in strictness, the people surrender nothing; and as they retain every thing they have no need of particular reservations. "WE, THE PEOPLE of the United States, to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." Here is a better recognition of popular rights, than volumes of those aphorisms which make the principal figure in several of our State bills of rights, and which would sound much better in a treatise of ethics than in a constitution of government."

We of course know the Federalists capitulated and we do have a Bill of Rights. It should be noted that the 9th and 10th stand as evidence that while the Federalists placed too much trust in the strictly limited grants of power of the constitution to bind government, his position wasn't considered naive.

Amendment IX

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment X

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

[Uncle Joe]

29. Those rights as enumerated in the Bill of Rights are just the base line

but I believe them to be essential for without them, there was no contract.

To say the people are sovereign is one thing but to list and protect their power of redress is quite another, without them how would the people short of revolution affect change when government goes off course? As I stated on an upper post, I believe the Constitution to be a living document and those listed people powers are the vehicle of change.

Even without those listed protections it's an uphill battle, I dread the thought of speech, protest and the press being lawfully enacted as being illegal.

I am most appreciative that the 9th and 10th Amendments were included and would argue just as forcefully for them as I would the previous 8.

[RockaFowler]

25. I posted this to my Facebook page

Thanks for this. I love throwing the Constitution back in their faces.

[Uncle Joe]

27. I don't know as this is a right by the Preamble but combined with the 9th Amendment, it should

be a right.

9th Amendment "The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

I believe the Constitution is a living document and the intent was clear in allowing it to evolve with the ages.

Kicked, too late to recommend.

Thanks for the thread, FrenchieCat.

[David Zephyr]

30. Solid OP.

I also believe that we deserve an option to not-for-profit healthcare like the rest of the industrialized world has had for 1/2 century. Good stuff, FrenchieCat.

[fadedrose]

32. Too late to R, but a good Kick...

[Zomby Woof]

33. Jefferson had nothing to do with the Constitution

It was largely written by James Madison, with considerable committee input and editing. Jefferson was in France, serving as the ambassador. He neither attended the convention, nor had a hand in ratifying the document. In fact, he was largely apprehensive about it.

If you read the Federalist Papers, the blueprint for the Constitution, you will note that the "general welfare" clause cannot be interpreted in the way you are attempting.

Far better to resort to the 9th and/or 14th amendments to develop a constitutional defense for universal health care. The 9th is problematic, for the courts have gone to both extremes in defining it, and even now, it is nebulous in meaning and intent. Still, it reserves unenumerated rights to the people, and is our best argument,

Jefferson and the Constitution? Get thee to a high school civics class.

[burning rain]

34. I think most constitutional scholars would find that the welfare clause...

allows for, but does not mandate, the creation of a right to healthcare.

[inna]

35. too late to recommend now, but....

excellent thread.