Obamacare is Unconstitutional

First, there’s a difference between health care and health insurance.  Nobody in the United States is denied health care.  Between Medicaid and federal law requiring emergency rooms to treat all comers, we simply do not have children dying in the street (like in, say, Rwanda, where, according to the Times, the most common causes of death are “diarrhea, pneumonia, malaria, malnutrition, infected cuts”).  As Michael says, “Yes, the poorer nation has a higher levels of health insurance coverage.  But the wealthier nation does a better job of providing medical care to everyone, insured and uninsured alike.”  That is, you can (and often do) have universal health insurance that provides universally bad care – except for the political elites, who pay extra for proper Western care.  Is there any American who would have better health living in Rwanda or any number of countries where the government provides universal health insurance?

Second, and relatedly, health care is not and cannot be a “right” — because rights are things that inhere in human beings by virtue of their being human.  As the Declaration of Independence says, we are “endowed by [our] Creator with certain unalienable Rights.”  These “natural” rights are things we enjoy without burdening the rights of others: freedom of speech and belief, the right to earn an honest living, freedom of movement, the right to acquire and possess private property, the right to decide what we do every day . . . all the way down to the right to get out of bed on the left or right side (or to stay in bed all day) – and the right to defend ourselves against those who would take away these rights.  Once you start making “rights” out of things that somebody has to provide you — food, shelter, health care, employment — then you’ve violated everyone’s natural rights and reduced their inherent liberty.