Healthcare for All Americans is a Constitutional Right

Before you read the following post I should explain something so you won’t think I’ve finally lost my mind. I write a weekly column for a Nye County weekly newspaper called The Mirror, entitled, strangely enough, Nye-Gateway to Nevada’s Rurals.

A friend of mine, Dan Schinhofen, a Nye County Republican, also writes a weekly column in The Mirror.

Dan writes about his view of the world from a Republican perspective. I write from a Democrat’s perspective. Though we agree on some things, we disagree about many things from our respective political viewpoints.

What you are about to read is my response to Dan’s column last week.

Well, Dan, having read your “Obama knows best” column about healthcare reform last Thursday, June 18, 2009 in The Mirror I came away with the thought it sounds like “let’s keep on doing what we’re doing—i.e., retain the status quo.” If so, the status quo isn’t working very well.

“President Obama is committed to working with Congress to pass comprehensive health reform in his first year in order to control rising health care costs, guarantee choice of doctor, and assure high-quality, affordable health care for all Americans.” [Source: Whitehouse.gov]

During the presidential election campaign Obama’s theme was Campaign for Change. My friend, Kelly Almond and I, heard repeatedly from people living in Precinct 28 in Pahrump—they emphatically wanted change from the status quo. Part of that change they sought was reform of the healthcare system in the United States. And, though Obama did not win in Nye County, the people of Nevada and the nation picked Obama as their agent to effect the change.

Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama pointed out in their public debates that change was in the air, and perhaps now was the time to push for universal health care, that the political will seemed present. Both cautioned that changing the healthcare system to include all Americans would be extremely difficult at best.

Clinton and Obama recognized the entrenched medical care industry and your political party would tenaciously resist any change. But change, it must.

“Comprehensive health care reform can no longer wait. Rapidly escalating health care costs are crushing family, business, and government budgets. Employer-sponsored health insurance premiums have doubled in the last 9 years, a rate 3 times faster than cumulative wage increases. This forces families to sit around the kitchen table to make impossible choices between paying rent or paying health premiums. Given all that we spend on health care, American families should not be presented with that choice. The United States spent approximately $2.2 trillion on health care in 2007, or $7,421 per person – nearly twice the average of other developed nations. Americans spend more on health care than on housing or food. If rapid health cost growth persists, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that by 2025, one out of every four dollars in our national economy will be tied up in the health system. This growing burden will limit other investments and priorities that are needed to grow our economy. Rising health care costs also affect our economic competitiveness in the global economy, as American companies compete against companies in other countries that have dramatically lower health care costs.” [Whitehouse.gov]

I could see from your column last week that you subscribe to Frank Luntz’s “The 10 Rules for Stopping the Washington Takeover of Healthcare,” I wrote about in The Mirror on June 11 and 18. Specifically you followed Luntz’s Rule 4 when you assert Obama “is determined to have the Federal Government in charge of everything.”

You may want to re-think your position that “This time his [Obama’s] sight is on the best health care system in the world and remaking it into a third world model.” The World Health Organization in 2000 ranked the healthcare system of the United States as 37th in the world. [Source: Geographic.org]

We may be lower than that by now. Keep in mind that that ranking has been achieved by our current healthcare industry without “government in the middle of the healthcare industry.”

Dan, note that President Obama’s approach to healthcare reform doesn’t constitute “The biggest threat to our deficit.” Re-read what he says. His approach is to cut and contain healthcare costs, not increase the deficit.

Since I’m running short on space, permit me to quickly change gears here. A fundamental factor seems to separate our view of this whole topic. I see healthcare as a Constitutional right of the people of the United States. The Preamble to the Constitution reads:

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, ensure 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.” [Preamble to the United States Constitution]

To me the “general Welfare” includes health. I submit my view of the application of the “general Welfare” clause is buttressed by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which reads “no state shall … deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” [14th Amendment to the United States Constitution]

Contrary to your apparent view, the matter of healthcare reform, is a Constitutional issue, not an economic one. The Constitutional right to healthcare for all is not dictated by nor controlled by insuring that the healthcare industry maintain a right to make a profit from the diseases, sicknesses, and health problems of the populace.

Related posts:

1. Support Healthcare Reform
2. Putting Americans In Control of Their Health Care
3. Healthcare Stories for America
4. HealthCare Consultants Position Now Available
5. Is Healthcare a privilege or a right?