Health Care Reform and the Constitutional Issues

The Supreme Court of the United States of America. The guardian institution of our system of jurisprudence and the authority on the Constitutionality of legislation (laws) that affects a free people.

An institution created to protect individual rights and place restrictions on the reach of the Federal Government as defined in the Constitution of the United States. To insure that legislation enacted by Congress and signed into law by the President, is constitutional.

There are those, and the number is significant, that believe individuals have a right to health care, without consideration as to whether they can pay for such services or not. These same people believe it is the obligation of government to ensure that a person who is unable to pay for services receive the service compliments of the taxpayer's good will.

Given todays modern and altruistic societal progression it is clear the battle against universal socialized medicine will be lost. Universal Socialized National Health Care, in some form, will become a reality in America, along with its inherent problems.

Aside from the fact that there exists no right to health care in our constitution, it will be placed upon us, and future generations, through laws passed by well meaning people. People who will not be around and thus not required to deal with the financial burden it will create on our society in future years.

The health care legislation passed by the House of Representatives, and moving through the Senate both contain the public option. Both also allow for keeping your current insurance if you are satisfied with your coverage. Both also require that you purchase health insurance or pay a penalty for failing to do so.

Sounds good so far. The issue of choice is present. For now at least. There is little doubt however that if the Senate passes their bill, and the House and Senate versions are reconciled and become law, that eventually, either through a sunset clause, or future legilation the right of choice will disappear. In fact the real agenda of proponents of Socialized National Health Care is the single payer system. We all know how well that works in countries who already have it.

The question at this point in our journey to altruistic socialized health care that needs to be asked is this; Does the government have a right to force individuals through coercion to purchase healthcare if they chose not to? Based on our constitution the answer is no. The natural question that follows is this; If a person chooses not to elect to purchase healthcare should they be required to pay for services received out of pocket? The answer is clearly yes.

If lawmakers force citizens, through coercive and unconstitutional laws, to purchase a product an individual feels they do not need or want, the issue should be challenged in the Supreme Court. While the entire issue of Universal Socialist National Health Care should be challenged on constitutional grounds it likely will not. We have come too far down the altruistic statist road to perhaps even think about such things.

The unfortunate thing is that no one is seriously looking at market based solutions and extensive tort reform as a more effective way to achieving the ends that we all realize need to be achieved.