Is Healthcare a privilege or a right?
“I think health care is a privilege. I wouldn’t call it a right.”
– Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), quoted by the Charleston Post & Courier.
DeMint’s quote showed up on CQ Politics today. A commenter to the post on CQ Politics wrote:
Let me see if I remember 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 inalienable rights, among these _________, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.
Nope, DeMint’s right. Unless I’m forgetting something.
The commenter isn’t right, she did forget something. The Declaration of Independence is not the Constitution.
To my knowledge there has not been a United States Supreme Court decision that determines whether or not health care is merely a privilege or whether it is a constitutional right.
I’ve written a blog post and a newspaper column in which I believe it is a right, pursuant to the Constitution. It is entitled Healthcare for all Americans is a Constitutional Right.
Conservatives, of course, like Senator DeMint disagree with me. And, they may be right, it is just my opinion. I haven’t done exhaustive research of Supreme Court cases in order to cite decisive case or statutory law. I don’t have access to a law library to do so.
I am curious about what reader’s think. Do you believe health care is a privilege or a right? Leave a comment and let us all know.
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7 comments
How about healthcare is a right if you are a Republican and a privledge if you are a Democrat.
The world’s richest country doesn’t even have a decent healthcare plan. What a shocking travesty!
Do you believe the Constitution is the rule of law? Do you believe in the original intent of our founding fathers? Do you want to reform Congress? If your answer is yes, we have to work together to make this happen.
http://animal-farm.us/change/constitution-project-575
We are the only modern industrialized country without universal healthcare. I believe it should be a Constitutional right in this country.
The Constitution isn’t statutory law. It is a framework of the relation of government to its people. Statutory law must comply with the Constitutional framework. The intent of the founding fathers was to construct a government to be “of, for, and by the people” via a republic system. Our problems with government generally arises from the ignorance of the people about what the U.S. government is and the relationship between the three branches of government. The Constitution isn’t the problem, people are the problem.
The fact that the US is the ONLY industrialized country without universal health care shows how morally bankrupt the country actually is. Sad ti say there is a sizable number of Americans who see health care as a privilege reserved for the well off. Why does the US always have money for needless wars but when it comes to the health of their citizens suddenly the costs are unacceptable? What a nation of morons!
I have been reading the debate of healthcare for weeks, but one thing is abundantly clear: we have the best health care in the world. I never hear of someone flying off to any country that has socialized medicine for quality medical care but as a nurse of 34 years I constantly meet people who come to the US for surgery and/treatment. I always ask the person “why did you come here for care, why didn’t you have this done in your country?” The answer is always the same: the care/surgery is not as good in their country and at home are long waiting lists for non life threatening surgery. We may not have the perfect system but the world sure recognizes that we have the best.
Thanks for the contribution Gail. I’m not in the medical profession but from all I read there are thousands of Americans who are dissatisfied with the health system. The dissatisfaction doesn’t seem to rest with the quality of medical care they receive, it is with the inability of so many to be able to afford it. I also read that the United States ranks 37th in the world for health care, not #1.
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