Is Healthcare a Right or a Personal Responsibility?

It is my (at least preliminary) belief that access to affordable health care is a right of the people of the United States and that it is within the powers of Congress to pass laws enabling that under the “General Welfare Clause” in Article I, Section 8 and the United States Constitution.

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States; [Followed by Congress' enumerated powers]

For those who care, this would put me on the Hamiltonian side of constitutional interpretation as distinguished from the interpretation of James Madison.

No one questions the authority of congress to legislate in support of military defense against national security threats so it seems to me quite reasonable for Congress to legislate in support of non-national security threats to life.

For those who would argue the Madisonian view I would, while aware of the dangers of a predatory federal government such as is restricted in the 9th and 10th amendments to the Constitution, am persuaded (until someone persuades me otherwise) that the same interpretation given in the Hamiltonian view is used by state governments within their own state constitutions.

Governments – whether federal, state or local – simply must have sufficient power to create conditions in which people's welfare (including their health, which is the foundation for most other types of welfare) can best be enabled.

This would not, in my opinion, rule out legislation that would require people to take significant responsibility for their own health and welfare (as we do with our careers, our finances, our marriages and our other private endeavors) but – as with these other endeavors – the federal government has the responsibility and power to fund and regulate the larger rules of the game.

Anyway, that's where I come down on the issue (for today, anyway :-)

Bill Bekkenhuis
Bethlehem, PA
bekkenhuis@fast.net