By Gary Wickert
The newly-crowned Miss USA is a scientist at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, but she dropped a bomb on the pageant judges and incurred the wrath of the politically elite Sunday night when she said that affordable health care in America is a privilege instead of a right. It's a question that underpins the stage for both the enactment of ObamaCare and its repeal. It dates back to Franklin Delano Roosevelt's 1944 State of the Union address, in which he set forth his proposed "Second Bill of Rights."
"Necessitous men are not free men," he rationalized, and therefore, all Americans have a "right" to, among other things, a job, a home, and good health care. But do they?
Former president Barack Obama famously said, “In the wealthiest nation on Earth, no one should go broke just because they get sick. In the United States, health care is not a privilege for the fortunate few, it is a right.” It sounds good, but does saying it make it so? You could plug anything important to a citizen's happiness and health into Barack Obama's sentence and it would be just as cogent: shelter, food, a car to get to work, good Wi-Fi, clothes, etc. After all, not having to walk to work cold, hungry, and naked, shouldn't be just for a "privileged few", right? Words matter, however, and we must look carefully at the history and meaning of the word "right" in order to assess the accuracy of the hypothesis.
The U.S. Constitution gives all Americans certain basic rights, including freedom of speech, press, and religion, the right to bear arms, the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, the right to counsel, the right to due process, the right against self-incrimination, etc. Heallth care is not a right guaranteed by the Constitution. Our Founding Fathers believed in personal responsibility, limited government, free markets, individual liberty, and a strong national defense. "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" are mentioned as rights in the Declaration of Independence. While one may make the argument that health care is somehow transformed into a "right" by the Declaration of Independence, it is the Constitution that delineates our rights and governs our country. There will always be the need to help the helpless or unfortunate, and America is the most generous nation on earth – by far. But the coerced taking of one citizen's money to pay for another citizen's medical bills is neither moreal nor constitutionally sound. If health care were declared a right, there would be fewer choices, poorer services, and far less freedom.
Some argue that people need health care in order to enjoy life. But what good is health care without clothes, a roof over your head, safe transportation to work, or simple cable? The same argument can be made for just about anything. Some argue that education is a right, so why not health care? Well, education is not a right – it is also privilege. Not only is the Constitution silent on the subject of education, but the U.S. Supreme Court has also refused to recognize any right to a taxpayerfunded education. In San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez (1973), the Court specifically declared that education, though important, "is not among the rights afforded explicit protection under our Federal Constitution. Nor do we find any basis for saying it is implicitly so protected."
Conservatives have long fought to return from the welfare state America has become to a constitutional, limited government, where accountability, the rule of law and individual responsibility are paramount. But therein lies the weakness of the human condition. We are by nature, selfish and lazy.
Politicians promise voters unemployment compensation, medical care, drugs, subsidized housing, and other handouts. Entitlements, once tasted by the public, cannot be taken away. The Swiss recently voted on awarding all citizens a “universal basic income” of about $30,000 a year, regardless of whether they have work or not. Two-thirds of British voters say they are in favor of this stupid idea. America must not make the mistakes its European counterparts have made. We must recognize more government largesse not as compassion, but as crack cocaine or crystal meth for the masses.
America must fight for that which made us so great at its founding — the fact that in our country, individual rights come from God, not government. We are $20 trillion in debt with no end in sight. The federal government spent more on health care than Social Security for the first time in 2015. Over $1 trillion on health care programs. We are a country that benevolently provides health care for those who truly need it – but it is not a right.
We want to limit government – we need to limit government – because we value freedom and a free society. We want to maximize opportunity, enterprise and creativity. We want to permit individuals to go as far as their talents, ambitions, and industry can take them – and yes – it will take some farther than others. We want people to dream and to have the room to bring those dreams to fruition--for themselves and their families. We want to strengthen the institutions of civil society that tend to atrophy as government grows - family, church, community, and the many voluntary associations that Alexis de Tocqueville recognized as the bedrock of American liberty and self-reliance.
Health care is an individual responsibility, a personal choice — something that, in this nation, should be seen in the same light as choosing which food to buy, which home to purchase, or which car to drive.
Anybody arguing to the contrary is destroying the last vestiges of our country’s greatness — the concept of God first, the individual, second, and the collective, a distant third. The purpose of the US Constitution, as stated in the Preamble, is to "promote the general welfare," not to provide it.