Mr. Obama, Where is That in the Constitution?

When asked a question about the subject from a member of the audience in the debate Tuesday night, Barack Obama stated that 'health care is a right.'

Methinks Barack has caught 'John Edwards' disease'--that dreaded malady that leads politicians who should know better to claim that things such as having Internet access, automatic U.S. citizenship, and health care are inherent, basic human rights.

Edwards declared back during the primaries that gun rights, for example, do not constitute a 'right,' but that having access to the Internet is such a right. He also claimed that every human being has the basic right to U.S. citizenship.

Funny that Edwards totally ignored the Constitution, which specifically states that gun rights are necessary to a free society. I suppose all of those other supposed 'rights' he mentioned are written in invisible ink, along with the part that says committing infanticide is a basic right because of 'right to privacy.'

The thing that makes this even more unacceptable is that both Edwards and Obama are lawyers--trained in some of the top law schools in the country. In short, they should know better.

Mr. Obama, where in the Constitution does it state that having health care is a basic human right?

The first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution are commonly known as 'the Bill of Rights' because they delineate the basic liberties individual citizens have in a free society.

The words 'freedom' and 'liberty' carry the connotation that individuals are set loose from government oppression and bondage. Thus, we have the 'right' to free speech rather than suppressed speech. We have the right to practice our religion openly and without government interference. We have the right to a Press that is free from the shackles of a government that only wants certain things reported to the citizens.

In other words, these basic individual rights do not require that our fellow citizens give anything up, nor do they imply that government 'grants' or 'gives' these rights at some expense that the government must tax the citizens to pay for. To the contrary, these rights cost society nothing. Our fellow citizens pay nothing in order for us to have them.

These rights are inherent to being human. They are God-given. Government can only recognize and protect these rights, or suppress them.

To place healthcare in this category does a great disservice to the terms 'liberty' and 'freedom.' We are already free to pursue healthcare in a variety of ways. But to say it is an inherent right means that the citizens must pay for someone else to be given their healthcare. None of our basic inherent rights cost others in this manner. You are not charged a tax on your income in order for me to be able to speak my mind freely.

Thus, healthcare in no way denotes freedom of any kind. It is a service that somebody must pay for. And if the individual does not pay for it, then his/her fellow citizens must pay for this service if we believe that all human beings should have it.

Government must then confiscate the money I earn from hard work, sweat, and sometimes pain, in order to pay for the healthcare of those who either choose not to go out and seek it for themselves or cannot do so because of some limitation.

We have safeguards in place for those with such limitations.

But for society to mandate a service be given to all citizens has nothing to do with rights. It is another social program designed by government to provide a service at a cost to the taxpayers.

And even then, it is a big mistake to assume that everyone in such a society will automatically be given healthcare. In nations where the government owns and operates the healthcare system and assumes that healthcare is a 'right,' rationing takes place due to the sheer overload. The demand far outweighs society's ability to pay. Thus, somebody, somewhere, is still going to get shortchanged because decisions are then made as to who is 'most worthy' to receive care based upon some pre-set criteria.

In Canada and the U.K., for example, you may be deemed too old or too sick to receive a heart by-pass, or a pacemaker, or even an artificial hip. Even in the event you are deemed worthy of the care, you may have to wait 10 months or longer to get much-needed surgery.

It is therefore correct to surmise that even in those nations that claim healthcare should be given to all as a basic right, in practice it never happens. It is impossible for it to happen. The reason is m-o-n-e-y. Even in the most Socialist of countries, money is not an infinite commodity. The care that is given is limited by the amount of money available to the government from the citizens. If that money dries up, even the government doesn't have the means to take care of every single citizen, as many have discovered to their shock in Europe.

Even under normal conditions those governments do not have the money to care for every single citizen.

For these reasons the notion of 'free healthcare' or 'the right to healthcare' is based upon a false premise. There is no such thing. We already live in a society where individuals are free to pursue and obtain their care either by purchasing it, getting a job where the employer purchases it, or by relying on various government and community programs to help if they cannot afford it.

But to claim that a service that costs megabucks is a 'right' is simply the height of ignorance.

It is for this reason that Obama is just as ignorant about the Constitution as his running mate Joe Biden, and their ex-rival for the Democratic nomination, John Edwards.

For more info on this important issue, check out 'No, Barack, Health Care is Not a Right' at Human Events.