Rants: Making a Federal Case of Health Care

X
The following consideration of the constitutionality of a proposed national health care system was originally composed in the comment section of Kyle Cupp's excellent blog, here. I am an advocate of a fully-nationalized, single-payer health care system. I think that to question the half-assed compromise system that is currently before congress on constitutional grounds is a joke and a diversionary tactic, being promoted in defense of corporate profits at the expense of the general welfare of the citizenry. That said, please consider the following:

The Preamble to the U.S. Constitution states that its purposes are the following: ...to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty...

I believe that ensuring access for all citizens, regardless of their ability to pay, to live-saving and life-enhancing health care fits nicely into the category "promote the general welfare." I believe that a national health care system is every bit as constitutionally sound as providing for the common defense. Is not defense against disease as important to the individual citizen as is defense against foreign or domestic enemies? Is it not, in fact, very likely to actually be much more important in the life of almost all citizens?

Much of medical research is funded by tax dollars. Why, therefore, should there not be equal, and guaranteed, access to the fruits of that science for all citizens?

I don't see the problem here. If a national health service, in which the government actually employed the health care providers were being proposed, the argument against it might be stronger. But that is not the case. The only difference here would be in who is writing the checks to pay for the services.

Government agencies are answerable to the people through their elected representatives. Insurance corporation bureaucrats are answerable only to their boards of directors and their shareholders. And what those entities are demanding of them is not good health care, but good profits. You do the math.
X