This question has been mulled over ad nauseam, I realize. But given all the hoopla over ObamaCare, it’s a legitimate question that deserves debate. So, I’m asking.
Personally, I (TerranceH) believe healthcare is a right. And rather than people explain why my argument is lacking, I want people to make their own argument in opposition. So, why isn’t healthcare a right?
Sifting Reality 
It can be a right if you want the whole system to fall head over heals. It sounds great in theory( I live in Spain where there is a single payer system, universal healthcare)but in practice you end up with less people paying into the system and more people taking away from the system. From a pure math point of view the numbers don´t add up, and the system will go broke like it has happened in Spain. I just spend 2 months in a hospital, 18 in ICU, a bed in the ICU costs almost 1million dollars, I´m not kidding. And like me there where quite a few people to say the least. Unfortunately life is not fair, but if you want a majority of people to get good health coverage you can´t go for universal healthcare unfortunately. So is a decision, a the greater good for most people or give those who can´t afford a health coverage(a very small percent of the population)the opportunity and let the system broke and let most of the population in a dire situation, even worst than they where before.
Hope I said something cohesive,
Stay Frosty.
I think health care is a right as much as eating is a right. But health insurance isn’t a right – in other words, a right to health care means you pay for it.
Knowing there are people who would be unable to pay for it, I have nothing wrong with a governmental body assisting with paying for health care as an insurance (ONLY FOR THOSE REALLY NEEDY, not just deadbeats), but the gov’t should not dictate what is covered nor should the gov’t mandate anyone to do what it likes.
I think healthcare is a right in so much as no one should be hindered from receiving healthcare which is essential to live: emergency and catastrophic care. The government should stay out of the health insurance business. If you want more thorough coverage, you should obtain insurance.
I have two exceptions. The legitimately mentally and physically indigent, and veterans. The former because they cannot provide for themselves. And the former because of the nature of their service to the country.
Otherwise people should account for their own insurance either through their employer or on their own. I think people equivocate “healthcare” and “health insurance”. health insurance isn’t a right, but emergency and catastrophic care I think is in our country. (Catastrophic as I use the term means cancer treatments, et.al.)
But here’s the main issue, in my opinion – where do you draw the lines between healthcare and profit? I’m all for the capitalistic model, but should life be lost at the risk of losing revenue?
The reason the government felt the need to intervene is the fact that insurance companies decide what they’re willing to pay for even if you do have insurance. As a cancer survivor, insurance companies have no interest in covering me. It’s not profitable for them. I don’t fall within John’s guidelines for any exception, but shouldn’t I still have the right to affordable health care?
Additionally, the difference in prices charged for the exact same procedures and medications from place to place is ridiculous. Should the healthcare industry be based on health care or profit? You really can’t have both.
Read Thomas Sowell today and you’ll see the real problem with our health insurance system:
http://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2013/11/05/an-old-new-program-n1736304/page/full
@Glenn
That article simply whines about regulation towards insurance companies and fails to address the underlying issue of the inflated costs of health care and medicine.
Insurance companies are built for profit. Period. Of course they’re going to complain about any kind of regulation.
It isn’t a whine at all. When any governmental body dictates what an insurance company must cover, the rates have to go up. Pretty simple economics.
Oh, and yes they are built for profit – just like every other business. DO you think insurance companies would exist if they didn’t profit from it? DUH!
But they should be the ones to choose what to insure – not some dictator who thinks it’s okay to run their business.
Terrance, could you define what you mean by “health care” in the question, “IS health care a right?”
Again, with the caveat that this seems like an exceedingly complicated question/topic with no easy answers…
I think that we have no God-given Right to having someone pay for any and all health care needs each one of us may have. As Glenn hinted at, we also have no “right” to any and all food we may want or need.
That’s the one side, it seems to me.
Do we, as human beings, have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Yes, I think so (that’s not original to me, though).
Does that right to life mean that we are owed a particular flavor of health insurance? No, I don’t think so.
Does that right to life mean that we ought to have the opportunity to have access to health care and food, medicine and clean water/clean air – ie, the essentials of life? Yes, I tend to agree with that idea.
Thus, if someone is threatening our clean water, we have a right to stop that threat. If someone is threatening our food supply, we have a right to stop that threat.
But I’m just not sure how that line of reasoning applies when it comes to healthcare.
Sorry, I think this one is over my head. Just offering what I could for the fun of it…
~Dan
You know, Dan is either incredibly stupid or he just loves to misrepresent people.
I said, I think health care is a right as much as eating is a right.
Dan said, As Glenn hinted at, we also have no “right” to any and all food we may want or need.
I never hinted at that at all!!! I was saying we all have a right to eat, and I thought that was pretty self-evident. If he’d left off the word “need” his statement would have been closer to what I actually stated.
What I also said was that while we have a right to health care, we don’t have a right to heath insurance that you don’t pay for, just like you don’t have a right to food you don’t pay for. Dan is one with an entitlement mentality.
Just like we have services for those who are truly needy so as to get food to them, that doesn’t make it a right. So we could have services which pay for necessary health care for those who can’t afford it, but that doesn’t make it a right.
As John has pointed out, no one in this country is ever denied NEEDED health care – which is why emergency rooms are busy. The problem with health insurance is that when you tell then what they HAVE to cover then you have become the person who decides what is or is not a medical necessity. If an insurance company doesn’t want to cover abortions, they should not be required to because abortion is never necessary. If they don’t want to cover birth control, they shouldn’t have to (birth control is very, very inexpensive to the point that all those “poor” people who are smoking expensive cigarettes have no excuse, and EVERYONE has access to free birth control by maintaining sexual self-control!)
? Glenn, I was agreeing with you. What entitlement mentality?
Man, sometimes you guys can’t take “yes” for an answer.
~Dan
No Dan, you did NOT agree with me. You included “want” and I was speaking of need.
zqtx,
One of the main reasons health care costs so much, including medication, it the huge liability insurance policies that have to be carried due to bleeding heart liberals’ penchant for suing over everything. Medical malpractice suits are totally out of hand with the awards given. How about a law to cap such awards? That could do a whole lot to reduce costs.
Do we, as a society, only allow access to health care to only those who can afford it?
As I, and John, have pointed out, everyone has access to virtually all medical NEEDS. And as I have stated, IF there is a bonafide medical need above the stuff ERs handle, THEN I would have no problem with a government subsidy to cover it as sort of an “insurance.” But the Obamacare goes way beyond that with all sorts of mandates which have already caused thousands who HAD health care to loose what they had! It is all about a government take-over.
@Glenn
It’s ok if you think insurance companies should have the right to refuse to pay for your medical bills because of pre-existing conditions if you like, but you’re still missing the point of this post.
Do you have a right to (affordable) heath care?
Many medical procedures and medicines are prohibitively expensive and unavailable. Do CAT scans really cost thousands and thousands of dollars? Does a statin prescription really cost over $5 a pill? Do we, as a society, only allow access to health care to only those who can afford it?
All healthcare is a want and not a need. No matter how much healthcare you receive you will eventually die, it is just a matter of when. The only right to healthcare is to not be be prevented from spending your own money, but there is no right to use other people’s money for your healthcare. Healthcare is a private and not a public good.
EMTALA should be repealed so that hospitals are not required to provide free emergency care. Grocery stores and restaurants are not required to provide free food.
I think Jeffrey has a good point. And with that I guess I’d have to say also that healthcare is not a right any more than food is a right. We have a right to eat and a right to take care of our own health, neither of which do we have a “right” to have others pay for.
HOWEVER, that being said, I think in a humane culture we should do what we can to provide for those in real need (vs. desires and wants). And those who practice the Judeo-Christian worldview should be more compassionate and provide where we can. But we also have to remember that we will never eliminate the poor (unless we do like Hitler did) because Jesus said “the poor you will always have with you.”
What that help looks like would be a far cry from Obamacare.
I’d suggest that there is (or was) a difference between a right to health care v. a right to health insurance.
Oh, so expensive medical procedures like CAT scans are because of insurance company liabilities. That makes sense. Oh, wait, no it doesn’t. That’s a red herring.
And when you mention that you’re ok with government subsidies to cover ER events, you do realize that’s basically socializing the cost, right? You just seem to have a problem with some of the items sometimes paid for because you don’t approve of those particular items.
What I find ironic is that you would deny medicine because of cost and then have the balls to mention the “compassion” of the Judeo-Christian worldview.
So, you guys are right – shut em all down. Everyone’s going to die eventually!
Maybe left-winger Alan Grayson was correct about the republican healthcare solution – just die quickly.
zqtx,
it’s good to see you operate like the standard liberal and misrepresent what is said.
My point was that there is no “RIGHT” to health care that you don’t pay for with your own money, just like there is no “RIGHT” to food you don’t pay for with your own money. Health insurance would be even less of a RIGHT, since the no one has to form an insurance company.
HOWEVER, speaking beyond “RIGHTS” I think the Judeo-Christian ethic should be that we do what we can to take care of those who are unable to take care of themselves for whatever reason. Since it is financially virtually impossible for small groups of people to be able to fund such expenses even pooling their resources, I see nothing problematic with forming some type of program/system which can be used. In this regard it would be somewhat of a “socialist” program in which everyone would pay into it (like we do for social security and medicare – which were/are poorly designed and managed), in the same way when I purchase car insurance the money I pay into it may never be used by me (e.g., I’ve had homeowner’s insurance for 40 years and last month was my first claim) but goes into a pool for all those insured by that company.
Part of the issue is the claim that people have no ACCESS to health care, and both John and I pointed out that virtually EVERYONE has ACCESS to health care at emergency rooms. There was nothing stated about how the ER was to recoup the payment other than I wouldn’t have a problem with a government program of some sort, without saying what sort it would be.
I don’t think any conservative is against every “socialist” program. I think such programs are important in a great nation, but the programs should always be of the “teach them to fish” rather than always giving them the “fish.” Socialism for the sake of socialism, which leads to a totally socialist nation is what most of us are against.
Obamacare does a huge amount of damage, is a total takeover of the insurance business and unfairly mandates what type of insurance employers have to offer and what type of insurance individuals have to carry, and if you don’t like it you get fined up the wazoo!
You sure do like to cry about being misrepresented, Glenn
You also keep going on and on about INSURANCE. I’m talking about real world situations involving HEALTH CARE and the prohibitive nature of the costs of HEALTH CARE.
One does not go to the emergency room for CAT scans, blood tests and prescriptions, do they?
ztqx,
I never “cried” about misrepresentation – I just stated a FACT.
I “go on about insurance” because that topic goes hand in hand with the liberal claim of a RIGHT to health care, which is why the LEFT demands an national law about what INSURANCE has to cover.
But let’s say all you want to discuss is HEALTHCARE. No one has the “right” to HEALTHCARE by other. You have every RIGHT to provide for your own healthcare; buy bandages, aspirin, etc. BUT there is no RIGHT to demand that a doctor care for you or that an ER take care of you. If there were doctors or hospitals, the RIGHT to HEALTHCARE has not changed because you’d then be taking care of yourself. Once someone goes into business as a doctor providing medical care above what you as a person can do for yourself, you still don’t have a RIGHT to demand that doctor take care of you. IF there are people who convince the doctor to take money or chickens or food in exchange for his services, the only RIGHT they have is the agreed upon service. If the doctor doesn’t feel like providing his services for free, no one has a RIGHT of force him to do so.
It is a FACT that a huge percentage of the expenses in health care is due to malpractice suits, while another huge percentage of the expense is due to the government requirements. So if you want to cry and whine about the “prohibitive nature of the costs” then start with eliminating government micromanaging of the system and cap lawsuit payouts.
But notice, you also didn’t stick with whether or not healthcare is a “RIGHT,” you brought in what it costs. SO how about we stick to whether or not healthcare is a RIGHT and explain how it is a RIGHT beyond your taking care of yourself. Because once you say it is a RIGHT, then you have to say someone is forced to take care of that right.
The RIGHT to own a gun does not come with it the RIGHT for the government to provide you with one. The RIGHT to freedom of speech does not include the RIGHT for the government to provide you with microphones, speakers, pen, paper, etc. The RIGHT to own property does not come with a RIGHT to having the government give it to you.
So it boils down to this, if all you are discussing is the RIGHT: You have a RIGHT to healthcare that you give yourself but you don’t have a RIGHT to have someone else give healthcare to you.
Z
let me ask you this question even though it seems silly. If you were an insurance company, auto or home owners, would you open a new policy for someone who called you and told you their house is burning down at this moment, or that they just wrecked their car? I doubt it. But this is what you are asking health insurers to do. You want them to just pay for your pre-existing condition. You pay a little, they pay everything else? The reason insurance companies can offer fractional premium costs is because there are people who purchase policies who never create a healthcare bill more than their premium. If you want an insurance company to foot the bill, why not just ask someone else to pay the bills?
We can’t forget that all insurance companies are businesses, NOT CHARITIES. Their sole purpose is to profit — not break even, not lose. No one has the right to insurance. In fact, healthcare costs as much as it does because so many things are covered by insurance. Hospitals are for profit too, for the most part. Why dont we just say they must do the work for free?
Why doesnt anyone make this same argument directed at grocery stores? We all have to eat. Not everyone can afford food. The grocery store is just out for profit.
This is a purely emotional issue.
@John
Please go back and read all my entries on this page.
I understand that insurance companies are in it for profit. It’s a business.
So are hospitals, but should they be?
Where do you draw the line between profit and ethics?
You have a choice in food, but you often don’t have a choice regarding health care procedures and specific medications. It’s not emotional.
Why shouldnt they be? Isnt it also immoral to simply decree who is allowed to profit and who isnt? Terrance know this first hand better than anyone I know. For profit hospitals and treatment centers provide better care than state run facilities. New technology is borne from the desire to profit.
It’s clear that you place more value in profit than life.
Careful what you worship there…
No, I dont. What I am saying is profit increases quality.
Plus, I recognize that it is immoral to simply force a business to give you their money for no other reason than you think you deserve it.
Charyl,
I appreciate your response, but you didn’t answer the question. You’re conflating two separate issues. All I got from your reply is that healthcare may be a right that is hard to implement.
Glenn,
There is little distinction between the two. You need health insurance most often to receive healthcare. Sure, you can receive emergency, stabilizing care without health insurance, but preventative healthcare and long-term treatment are widely unavailable to those lacking insurance. Such semantics merely confound the problem and that gets us no closer to a solution.
John,
The only “right” you have in this country with respect to healthcare is emergency, stabilizing treatment. There is no right to preventative or catastrophic care. It seems to me that society could save money if preventative care was offered. People without insurance are often in the Emergency Room because of an ailment or illness that could have been prevented. How much money could be saved, I wonder, if preventative care were offered to those who can’t afford to pay for it themselves?
Dan,
There is no God-given right to force someone else to pay for our healthcare. Similarly, however, there is no God-given right to force others to protect us from harm. Yet, amazingly, the “right not to be murdered” or harmed is traditionally thought of as a negative right, meaning it’s a real right because it doesn’t require action on someone else’s part. But this is nonsense. We have police officers, politicians, judges, prosecutors, and others all entrusted with keeping us safe and dealing out justice.
So, I think you’re looking at the issue all wrong. General Welfare can include more than just police and fire protection, and all nonsense about “negative” and “positive” rights quite aside.
Jeffrey,
You’re an immoral psychopath that nobody really takes seriously. So, ya know, have a few drinks and then drive home or something.
Craig,
I fail to see the distinction.
Terrance,
There is definitely a distinction between healthcare and health insurance. Wealthy people don’t need the insurance. Since z challenged me about healthcare, I addressed just that, although I stated that two were entwined. But if you want to respond to your specific question in the title, then you have to separate the two.
Glenn,
Then what is it? What is the distinction? Healthcare is only available with insurance apart from stabilizing care at an Emergency Room. Where is the prevenative care? Where is the catastrophic care?
Terrance,
Um, you don’t know the difference between healthcare and health insurance? Sort of like the difference between a car and car insurance and a house and homeowner’s insurance. And health care in NOT just available with insurance. Anyone with the proper amount of money can pay their own way without insurance. For example, my doctor charges about $200 for an annual physical. I can pull $200 out of my pocket and pay for it – without resorting to purchasing insurance. So don’t say healthcare is only available with insurance.
Notice again what I wrote above about RIGHTS – not desires or wants, but RIGHTS. I’ll paste it here so you don’t have to back (and correct editorial errors).
What are a persons RIGHTS in regard to HEALTHCARE? No one has the “right” to HEALTHCARE by others. You have every RIGHT to provide for your own healthcare; buy bandages, aspirin, etc. BUT there is no RIGHT to demand that a doctor care for you or that an ER take care of you. If there were no doctors or hospitals, the RIGHT to HEALTHCARE has not changed because you’d then be taking care of yourself. Once someone goes into business as a doctor providing medical care above what you as a person can do for yourself, you still don’t have a RIGHT to demand that doctor take care of you. IF there are people who convince the doctor to take money or chickens or food in exchange for his services, the only RIGHT they have is the agreed upon service. If the doctor doesn’t feel like providing his services for free, no one has a RIGHT of force him to do so.
What are a person’s RIGHTS in regard to HEALTH INSURANCE? If someone decides to go into business selling any kind of insurance, it is the owner’s RIGHT to determine what he will cover and how much he will charge for it. It is NO ONE ELSE’S RIGHT – not you, not me, not the government – to tell the business owner what he must cover and what he can charge for such coverage.
Why is it that everyone things it is just grand for the government to violate the rights of the insurance companies, as well as the rights of those who have legally purchased health insurance of their choice? Would everyone be clamoring the same way if the government got involved in car insurance, house insurance, life insurance, etc?
If we are only talking about RIGHTS, then what we have is a travesty of epic proportions with Obamacare.
Now, if you want to talk about how people should care for others regardless of rights, that is a different topic. But when you limit the conversation to RIGHTS, then you can’t go on about how the government should take care of its citizens, etc. That’s all emotion and not about RIGHTS.
Glenn,
You’re talking out of both sides of your mouth now, Glenn. You know damn well that the vast majority of people cannot afford to pay for healthcare without insurance. I take a medication that, without insurance, costs $700 a month!!! A lot of medications and procedures are exorbitantly priced and most people cannot afford them apart from insurance. The two are virtually inseparable – and ya know it.
Then nobody has the “right” to police protection. That involves other people.
ERs must treat people whether they’re capable of paying or not.
And screw the patients, right? LOL. You guys crack me up.
The government has a responsibility to promote the General Welfare of society and that must include at least basic healthcare.
Terrance,
No I’m not talking out both sides of my mouth. The question is about RIGHTS. And I clearly pointed out what RIGHTS people have. The question was about RIGHTS, not needs, or wants, or compassion, or anything else. Once you start saying a person has a RIGHT to someone’s service, you start down a long road of losing every freedom we have.
Police protection is paid for by our tax dollars. It is a service we pay for, therefore by way of that contract we have the right to police protection. If the police didn’t get paid, they wouldn’t work.
ER’s must treat people because of laws which require them to do so, and by those laws which cover everyone in the jurisdiction of those laws, the people have a right to what the laws say they can have. In absence of such law, there is no RIGHT for a person to demand a service without payment.
I have no problem with a government back health care plan to help those who can’t afford insurance, but that isn’t the topic. The topic you posted is quite simple – Is health care a RIGHT. And the answer is NO. It only becomes a RIGHT if a law requires providers to give care for free and then reimburses the provider, otherwise the provider’s rights of payment are violated. The current Obamacare is a travesty of all sorts of rights violations while trying to do something to help. That’s the problem with liberals – they have to DO something but never think through what it is they do, how much harm it causes compared to what good it does. In the case of Obamacare, what is supposed to be affordable health care has become 3-4 times as expensive for those who already had coverage, and thousands have lost their insurance so they are not covered at all unless they buy into something exponentially more expensive. Check out what is happening in Canada and you will see extreme shortages of doctors (because they don’t like being shafted with low incomes after spending HUGE amounts of money getting trained, as well as being told what procedures they are allowed to do).
But, this isn’t the topic of your post. Your post asked about RIGHTS, and I spelled out why NO ONE has a RIGHT to healthcare without providing payment for it – just like every other service in that if you want the service you have to pay for it – you have no RIGHT to get if for free. Go to a tire store and tell them you want a new tire because you have a flat, but you don’t have money for it, and when they turn you down you tell them you have a RIGHT to a new tire.
Glenn,
Government has a responsibility to generate conditions that encourage a healthy populace without interfering with individual rights – and ensuring all citizens receive at least basic healthcare is no more an abrogation of individual liberty than police and fire protection. And this is hardly minority opinion. The right to health for all human beings appears in many international treaties and national constitutions. America is in the dark ages on this issue.
People often say the Constitution guarantees only “negative rights,” but I’m not sure this is true. For example, the right “not to be murdered” is a negative right, they say, because it doesn’t involve action by other people. But this is nonsense. We have police officers, prosecutors, judges, and many other law enforcement officials all charged with protecting us and delivering us justice.
So it seems there are rights enshrined within our Constitution and laws that require action by other people and the use of tax dollars to compensate them. Why should healhcare be any different?
No, there is no God-given right to demand a service with payment – and I thought I cleared that up earlier in my reply to Dan. But that’s hardly the point. As I’ve shown, some RIGHTS indeed require action by other people and the use of tax dollars to compensate them. Understand, I’m not talking about natural rights.
The answer is YES. I explained this above. Government has a responsibility to ensure our safety (a RIGHT) and that requires work by other people – and so government compensates them. It’s not the same as natural rights or the right to free speech or religion, but it’s still a right – as much of one as the right “not to be murdered.”
If a law is written which says everyone has a right to healthcare weather or not they can afford it, then, and only then, does everyone have a right to it, because a law was made giving them such a right. But without such a law, no one has that right.
Unless you have a law saying so, then you are saying people have a right to any service provided by anyone regardless of whether or not they can pay for it.
YOU are the one who asked the question as it is posed. As it is posed, with no laws giving such rights, there is neither a natural right or a legal right for anyone to have healthcare provided by someone else without paying for it. And there is also no RIGHT to have someone else pay for it.
Do people have a RIGHT to birth control? YES, as long as they pay for it – or have it for free by not having sex. Do they have a RIGHT to have others pay for it? NO, and yet that is what Obamacare is forcing on all insurance companies. Should any insurance company be forced to pay for birth control? NO. It is readily, and inexpensively available to everyone – even FREE by not having sex.
That is just an example of claiming people have a right to a service or product without paying for it.
You are confusing rights with moral responsibility.
Glenn,
If government’s responsibility is to promote the General Welfare of society, then I’d say the right to at least basic healthcare already exists. How can someone intelligently argue that government is promoting the General Welfare when citizens are suffering and dying because they lack money to purchase healthcare?
No, I’m not. I believe it is both a Right an moral responsibility.
If it is the Government’s responsibility to promote the General Welfare (healthcare was never envisioned in that clause, and some founders of the nation commented about the real intent, which would NOT cover healthcare), then they need to make a LAW saying everyone has a right to healthcare paid for by the government. Obamacare doesn’t say that. Obamacare is a violation of the rights of insurance providers by telling them what they must cover, and it violates the rights of those who have purchased policies by taking them away and by raising their rates exponentially.
As long as there is no law which specifically states that every one now has a legal right to healthcare service paid for by someone else, then the RIGHT to healthcare is that which is paid for by the person receiving the service.
As I stated, I have no problem with a law which will provide healthcare for those who can’t afford it, but it can’t be a law violating the rights of everyone else. Nor can it be a law which forms a bureaucracy which costs more money than the healthcare does – which would be normal for a government program because there is no accountability. Obamacare is an Obamanation and a travesty of justice.
Glenn,
You don’t know if that was envisioned in the clause or not, so why state it so matter-of-factly? Either way, I’m inclined to agree. It PROBABLY WASN’T.
Regardless, Thomas Jefferson said,
“I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.”
We live in a different world now. Healthcare is far more complex and thus far more expensive than in Jefferson’s day. And I believe that, in modern American, providing at least basic healthcare is a necessary part of promoting the General Welfare.
I don’t support ObamaCare. ObamaCare is a massive cluster f*ck.
Yes I DO KNOW what the authors of the Constitution meant by the “general welfare” clause, and anyone who is serious about understanding what it meant can find it very easily on the Internet. You might find reading the “Federalist Papers” helpful also. Just look at this link which took me 30 seconds to find:
http://freedomoutpost.com/2013/03/does-the-general-welfare-clause-of-the-u-s-constitution-authorize-congress-to-force-us-to-buy-health-insurance/
Which is why I say, if they want healthcare covered by the government, then they need to make it a law, amend the Constitution, or something to make it legally covered by the government.
You still haven’t explained why my argument is invalid? Considering the Founder’s belief that each generation has different needs, why isn’t at least basic healthcare covered under General Welfare in modern America?
Terrance, my answer was in the link I provided. WHAT was it that the authors meant by “general welfare”? It would not include health care.
To answer the question, No. Health care is NOT a right. But, like happiness, we all have the right to pursue it.