Does the Declaration of Independence give us the right to access to health care?

[Cleita]

I think Thom Hartmann just nailed it. The Declaration of Independence guarantees us the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The key word in that phrase is LIFE. In order to have a right to life we have to have a right to those things that preserve life, like water, food and health care. By gumbo I think he nailed it. Now just how much influence does the Declaration of Independence have with lawmakers and can, we the people, force them to acknowledge it?

[endarkenment]

1. technically the declaration has no legal standing

and rights are not 'given'.

[MarkInCA]

2. Exactly right

The Declaration is just that, a document that declared things in a situation that was resolved years ago.

The Constitution and laws which do not go contrary to it are the law.

[SteppingRazor]

4. Exactly. If the Declaration had legal standing, there probably wouldn't be a United States.

After all, the main thrust of the document is that the people have the right to break away from a government and form a new one. Taking that into account, we'd probably have a Confederate States of America today if the Declaration had legal standing.

[JerseygirlCT]

42. I was just going to say that. nt

[hoplophile]

3. Unfortunaltl no.

The problem with a "right to health care" that it demands goods and services from another human being. No person has the right to demand service from another person.

[SteppingRazor]

7. On the contrary, people have every right to demand things from the government...

and the government, in turn, has every right to demand goods and services from people. Thus, a right to healthcare is perfectly feasible in that sense.

[hoplophile]

9. Go read the 4th amendment regarding that.

The ONLY property government can TAKE is land through eminent domain. Forcing one human being to serve another is called slavery. This country fought a war over that.

[walldude]

13. So you are equating health care with slavery?

That argument ought to get you far.

[hoplophile]

14. Lets put it like this

A person that picks crops for a living is told that he/she MUST pick this orchard and the government dictates what that person will be paid. Do you not find a moral objection to that?

Telling a doctor that he must see that patient and then telling him that the government will dictate his pay for that service is just the same.

I object to both. To tell one person that he MUST provide a service for another is morally wrong. Now if you want to discuss how to insure that people get the health care they need we can do that but the conditions outlined above are the wrong way to do it.

[Cleita]

29. Having worked picking fruit when I was in high school, I would have been

delighted if the government had insisted on some safety measures and minimum wage, which we didn't get. As far as being forced to work in a particular place, the time of harvest dictates that, not the government, nor the farmer. Your examples are apples and oranges. Sorry for the pun.

[hoplophile]

32. Really? And what if the wages dictated by the govt were less than what you were making?

What if you were told to pick fruit in Florida but wanted to pick it in Calif? What if you wanted to pick apples but were told to pick strawberries.

It is wrong for the govt to do these things no matter the profession.

[Cleita]

35. Those are ridiculous stretches that would require a really totalitarian

society like red China to implement at force.

[hoplophile]

37. You obviously are unaware of what was in "Hillarycare"

[Cleita]

39. I'm very aware of it and I wasn't in favor of her program.

Congress wasn't either including many Democrats because it wasn't a workable plan, which is why it was defeated. As a matter of fact, I'm in favor of Conyer's plan, HR676 which is already in Congress, but not brought to the floor. I don't think any other plan is workable. Click on the link in my signature if you believe you have an open mind to read something against your libertarian genes and want to know about it, if for no other reason than to be more informed about debating this issue.

[walldude]

41. So you think the minimum wage should be abolished?

"the government dictates what that person will be paid." Do you not find a moral objection to that? No I have no moral objection to the government stopping slave wages.

No one is talking about making Doctors slaves. Your analogy is bunk. Doctors should get paid well, just like teachers should. Too bad in this country we reward people not for working hard but for being clever enough to steal money from people who work hard.

Sounds to me like you are happy with the insurance industry. Well if you had a son with Autism, and an adopted child with Muscular Distrophy and you were told by every insurance company on the planet that they can't insure your children because... they are sick, well you might have a different opinion on the matter.

[SteppingRazor]

18. So the government has no right to, say, conscript people into the armed forces?

Because that's certainly demanding labor of them.


And for God's sake, don't tell me to "go read the 4th amendment." I can quote the Bill of Rights from memory.

[Cleita]

20. Now that to me is closer to slavery, or being forced to be deployed to

a war you didn't sign up for.

[SteppingRazor]

21. Personally, I think neither the draft nor slavery are even remotely comparable ...

to a nationalized single-payer healthcare system, but I'm just trying to make the point that the government can, and has, demanded goods and services from its citizens.

[hoplophile]

22. The draft would be a topic for another post. I'll not hijack this one.

[SteppingRazor]

24. That, or you don't have an answer.

In any case, as I said in a different post, I don't think slavery and/or the draft bear any resemblance to what we're talking about. Closer comparisons would be teachers in the public school system, police officers, firefighters, post office workers, etc.

Or is it your opinion that all of these things should be privatized too?

[hoplophile]

31. Start a thread on the subject if you like. You seem to be obsessed with it.

[Cleita]

19. Slavery is when you don't get paid for rendering services.

Access to health care has nothing to do with being forced to render services. Nice straw man there. It's the government that would be forced to make sure that everyone gets health care and since the government is supposedly by the people and for the people, we are essentially demanding that our rights be recognized.

In every country with national health care, doctors and other health care providers can refuse to participate in the system and have cash up front patients if they desire. No one is forcing them to do anything. However, most health care providers are satisfied with the compensation they get for services from the government so it's not a big problem.

[hoplophile]

23. Call it indentured servitude then. Regarding the rest see post 14

[Cleita]

28. It's not indentured servitude when the doctors participate in the system

willingly and most do. They like the simplicity that the lack of paper work does for their practices, freeing them up to actually look after their patients, not whether their patients have the ability or insurance to pay.

[surrealAmerican]

43. If, as you say, "forcing one human being to serve another" is ...

... impermissible, wouldn't the draft be illegal under any circumstance?

[bobbolink]

38. Not correct. OTHER COUNTRIES have the right to health care spelled out in their constitutions!!

The problem is the U.S. is so wedded to corporate power and "rugged individualism" that we dont' see the forest.

Of COURSE it can (and should!) be demanded!

If we have any integrity....:shrug:

[truedelphi]

5. Yes we the people can force them to acknowledge our

Legally protected rights. But I am afraid at this point it wil take many of us watering the Tree of Liberty with our Blood, rather than hoping a newly elected person from the DLC will bring change.

Money speaks louder than words, and the money from the Corporate Health Industry speaks much louder than activists' like you or me.

[DonEBrook]

6. The D of I isn't a legal document, it's a list of grievances.

...
edit for dumb spelling. It's i before e except after c. What a weird society. :evilgrin:

[ThomWV]

15. Close, but no banana.

I hated to sound snide in the title line but I wanted to get your attention because I think this little matter is worthy of discussion. My reading of the DoI is very close to yours but differs in one way. I don't see it as a list of grievances, but a rational for an action taken. Read it as if it were a letter and then ask yourself who is speaking, who the intended listener is, and what the subject matter is. When I did that I came to this conclusion. The speaker is "We the People" the intended listener is 'the people of Britain' - those under the rule of the King. The subject is poor treatment by the King of his heretofore loyal subjects in the Colonies and lists the actions of the King which brought about our decision to disassociate ourselves from his realm.

Here is what my reading gives us. First it maintains that all legitimate power of Governance resides with the People and that the role of the King is to provide protection as well as fair treatment in dispensing justice and to do so at the expense of fair taxation. We the people claim that the King has failed in his duty and we explain to our counterparts on the mother island that we are done with him and the reasons why. That is my reading. Can you see where I'm coming from? My reading preserves the authority of the people over all matters of governance.

[DonEBrook]

40. I won't disagree...well not vigorously at least. I believe the "we the people"

principle was formulated in the Declaration as a concept or even a 'working title' which was later formally adopted as a legal governmental and social construct in the Constitution. Perhaps "complaints" would be a little more specific than 'grievances' as a way of grasping just exactly what was being addressed and by way of formulating ways to rectify the situation. It always seemed to be more of a "to whom it may concern" than an epistle to English citizens but that's probably a trivial distinction; it did the job. :-)

[TayTay]

8. The Constitution is the first binding national legal document in our history

The Declaration set out the founding principles for the separation of the US from Great Britain. The Declaration was a brilliant document that was intended to articulate to the world the foundation of the argument that the US colonies were using to justify armed rebellion against a parent state. It is not a Constitution however. Jefferson's triumvirate of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" are not coded into US Law.

I think there is justification in the preamble to the Constitution however.

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

[CTyankee]

16. Bingo! "promote the general Welfare" has been used to justify establishment of public schooling

for all. It can just as nicely be used to establishing universal health care.

[zagging]

27. Article 1, Section 8

Some of the Declaration's words are not just embodied in the constitution, but written in.

"Section 8. 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;", etc...

This clause has been used to justify just about every federal program ever devised.

[Cleita]

30. Thank you!!

I'm sending this to Congressmen John Conyers and Dennis Kucinich and see if they can work something through it to get their health care bill HR 676 on the floor to be debated.

[Phredicles]

10. I've heard the Declaration described as the "theory" underlying our country,

while the Constitution establishes what's so in practice. I agree with Hartmann, that the Declaration certainly implies that morally, as a matter of principle, we have that right. But it's also true that, as others point out in this thread, it has no legal force.

[McCamy Taylor]

11. We pay half our income for health insurance and medical bills that insurance does not cover.

That is an insane amount of money considering it is just three of us and we are all active people no one with a transplant or on dialysis or anything. Just unlucky enough to have to be on the state's high risk pool insurance which costs an arm and a leg and has a mega deductible. Had to take out a mortgage on our house this year to cover medical bills and can not live on our current income because of the high cost of insurance and medical expenses.

I am afraid that health care reform will not come soon enough. They will probably bicker over it for two more years and use it in the 2010 midterms to try to consolidate power in Congress claiming that the 42 Senate Republicans have kept them from doing anything while what they are really doing is stalling so that they will not have to spend the money or anger the insurance industry---that is my fear.

Daschle is so mad at the GOP I could see him using health care in this way, just to get even with them.

[datasuspect]

12. no piece of paper can guarantee us these rights

we are ENDOWED with these natural rights by our Creator.

governments are instituted to secure these rights.

[deaniac21]

17. Earth to Cleita....come in.....come in.....over

[cherokeeprogressive]

25. The Right to Life.

Just think what the wingers would do if someone tried to argue the point that this particular phrase could be construed to guarantee anything at all.

[stuntcat]

26. to me it's a matter of national security/public safety

Keeping everyone healthy as possible makes so much sense, for like HUNDREDS of reasons.
It takes a while for things that obvious to sink into people's general acceptance though, people are stubborn animals! The greedy MINEMINEMINE gimme gimme bullshit might stop us from ever giving HEALTH to each citizen when they need it.

[Cleita]

33. Isn't it peculiar that even fascist, imperialistic societies like the ancient Romans has

had that concept, too. That is why they built their aqueduct system so the citizens of their cities including Rome could have fresh clean water. They built public baths as well so everyone could bathe, even the lowliest slave. There was nothing altruistic about it, but the reasoning that it prevented plague which affected everyone, not just the poor.

[stuntcat]

44. if we're very very lucky no new plague will evolve..

and hit a lot of poor folks that no rich old farts wanted to supply HEALTHcare to.

and maybe those bio-weapons they keep talking about will be released on the people who live next to nice hospitals.

Good Luck to all of us.. I'm crossing my fingers.

[cali]

34. No. The Declaration grants us ZERO rights

How sad that Hartmann doesn't know this.

[Cleita]

36. I don't think he said it granted anything.

He just said that it was written in there. I took it from there because it seems that many of our laws and articles in the Constitution have been based on it, which means to me that it's worth more than zero.