If Obamacare Is A Right, Then We Are All Slaves
According to Rep. Nancy Pelosi, “Obamacare is a right, not a privilege.”
“Here’s the thing: the American Affordable Care Act stands there with Social Security, Medicare, health care for all Americans as a right, not a privilege,” said Pelosi. “It was opposed vigorously by two forces: one, the health insurance industry, and secondly by anti-government ideologues who do not believe that there should be a government role in clean air, clean water, as well as health care in our country.
“We don’t want our proposal to have any more government than it needs,” said Pelosi.
“It’s very private sector oriented, it’s market-oriented, it’s about prevention, it’s about innovation, it’s about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for the American people because it frees them, unlocks them from a job that they may keep only because of the health benefits to pursue their happiness.”
The word “health” does not appear in the U.S. Constitution.
Forget, for a moment, that 60% of Americans in a recent poll identified a government mandate to buy health insurance as a violation of Constitutional rights, I have a big problem with any asserted “right” that requires one individual to provide something to another individual.
You have a right to obtain and attain what you can. You do not have a right to force other people to provide you with things you cannot get yourself. That implies that you have a right to other people’s wealth and abilities, and that’s pretty much what the southern plantation owners felt they had when it came to the labor of their black slaves.
That’s how entitlement politics works. Convincing one segment of the population that they’re entitled to something provided by another segment of the population.