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Is Right to Health Care in Constitution?

Posted by Mike on Tuesday, November 17, 2009 12:36:10 PM
http://westernperspective.blogspot.com/
The Tenth Amendment reserves to the states or to the people all rights not specifically enumerated. The Constitution gives Congress the express power of the purse. This means that only Congress has authority to decide how tax revenues are spent.

Whether or not required by the Tenth Amendment, prudence following the principle of subsidiarity would dictate that state and local governments should be in charge of health care. The primary responsibility rests with the individual and families. Government has an obligation to assist only where necessary.

Will liberals in Congress derail health care over abortion? Probably not. Sixty votes are only needed in the Senate to overcome a procedural obstacle, not to pass the legislation with or without inclusion of the Stupak amendment or similar pro-life language.

Will the Stupak amendment come back to haunt Senators and Representatives in the years ahead? We can expect a shift in the balance of power after 2010 and possibly a new administration in 2012. This is before health care reform gets off the ground. There is plenty of time to add explicit pro-life language at a later date. The Stupak amendment is at least a noble beginning.
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Basic Health Care a Right for All

Posted by Mike on Wednesday, November 11, 2009 1:13:52 PM
http://westernperspective.blogspot.com/
Opposition to reasonable health care reform and support for legalized abortion are really two sides of the same coin. They both reject human solidarity. They both view life as a zero-sum game.

There can be no solidarity without deference to subsidiarity. All persons in society have a basic right to health care as a matter of social justice, which includes the corresponding responsibility of all to contribute in some way to the common good. Basic medical care should be provided first at the local level, and only receiving state assistance when the standard of care falls below normal. Capitalism tends to exalt personal choice above the common good, which is a form of libertarianism and leads to a decrease in the overall standard of care.

In actuality, there are two rights which are the subject of the debate. The first is the right to life, without which no other rights can be realized. This means that abortion is not legitimate health care because it denies human beings the fundamental right to life. Abortion and legitimate health care are polar opposites.

The second right that must be secured is the right of all to basic health care. Each individual who actively participates as a member of society has this right. This also includes immigrants here legally, but not immigrants here through subterfuge. Of course, local governments may nonetheless require that emergency services be provided even to those here through subterfuge for the common good of all.

These two fundamental rights are not opposed to each other. There is no reason why the Senate and House cannot together pass legislation that protects the life of the unborn and at the same time makes sure that the right to basic health care is insured where necessary.

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Basic Health Care a Right for All

Posted by Mike on Wednesday, November 11, 2009 1:13:33 PM
http://westernperspective.blogspot.com/
Opposition to reasonable health care reform and support for legalized abortion are really two sides of the same coin. They both reject human solidarity. They both view life as a zero-sum game.

There can be no solidarity without deference to subsidiarity. All persons in society have a basic right to health care as a matter of social justice, which includes the corresponding responsibility of all to contribute in some way to the common good. Basic medical care should be provided first at the local level, and only receiving state assistance when the standard of care falls below normal. Capitalism tends to exalt personal choice above the common good, which is a form of libertarianism and leads to a decrease in the overall standard of care.

In actuality, there are two rights which are the subject of the debate. The first is the right to life, without which no other rights can be realized. This means that abortion is not legitimate health care because it denies human beings the fundamental right to life. Abortion and legitimate health care are polar opposites.

The second right that must be secured is the right of all to basic health care. Each individual who actively participates as a member of society has this right. This also includes immigrants here legally, but not immigrants here through subterfuge. Of course, local governments may nonetheless require that emergency services be provided even to those here through subterfuge for the common good of all.

These two fundamental rights are not opposed to each other. There is no reason why the Senate and House cannot together pass legislation that protects the life of the unborn and at the same time makes sure that the right to basic health care is insured where necessary.

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Limited Government and the Principle of Subsidiarity

Posted by Mike on Sunday, September 27, 2009 11:57:43 AM
http://westernperspective.blogspot.com/
After the Revolutionary War in 1776, there were in effect thirteen sovereign states in America. Adopting the Articles of Confederation just meant that these states were willing to band together for common purposes such as defense and trade. The Constitution enacted in 1787 was designed to uphold the sovereignty of the several states within one nation.

The principle of subsidiarity prohibits government at a higher level from doing things that can be done locally or at a lower level. This is essentially the basis for the Tenth Amendment in the Bill of Rights which limits the scope of the federal government to having only those powers enumerated in the constitution.

With the outbreak of the Civil War, President Lincoln had to take emergency measures to keep the Union together. During this time, the war powers of the executive branch of government grew.

The Baucus Bill on health care is a clear violation of the principle of subsidiarity. The best health care will not be provided by the federal government. In order to preserve good government in America, Americans must band together to vote out of office the president, and all senators and congressional representatives who vote in favor of the transfer of power over medical insurance to the federal government, or who vote in favor of the nationalization of health insurance or the so-called public option.
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Helping People Help Themselves

Posted by Mike on Monday, July 20, 2009 11:10:55 PM
http://westernperspective.blogspot.com/
Democrats begin with a misconception or flawed premise that diversity in government and in industry is always good. This may derive from flaws within the capitalist economic system.

It does no good to elect or appoint people to run a nation or enterprise based upon their ethnic differences. Individuals of minority status bear the burden of offering something of value to the majority culture. If they have nothing good to offer, they should not be given a free handout. That only results in dependency.

It is the responsibility of the people to secure peace, tranquility and happiness. Government at the local level can always offer assistance for people genuinely trying to help themselves. This is subsidiarity. Simply sending out more welfare checks doesn't solve anything. Federal and state government must therefore be reduced to only handling problems too complex to be handled at the local level.

The reform of health care is a local issue, not state or federal.

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Further Reflections on the Ricci Case

Posted by Mike on Friday, May 29, 2009 6:45:44 PM
http://westernperspective.blogspot.com/
The effect of the actions taken by the City of New Haven to bring about racial diversity was to pull the rug out from under the firefighters who honestly believed that preparing for and taking the civil service exam in good faith would thereby lead to a chance of gaining a promotion to Lieutenant within the Fire Department.

As a question of law, does the City owe a duty to its citizens to act in good faith when administering civil service exams? This is over and above the question of whether it was simply stupid of City officials to administer the exam and then throw out the results because they didn't like the outcome. Subsidiarity bars the federal courts from interfering simply on the basis of the City's prudential judgments, no matter how bad those judgments were for the people.

Were the White and Hispanic firefighters who passed the bogus test discriminated against? The answer is no. They were simply made to look like fools because the City did not in fact promote anyone from within the Department based upon its own predetermined criteria.

Do these firefighters then have a cause of action?

Clearly there is a duty to act in good faith. If the City essentially held out a carrot and said "Here, take this", and then reneged on its promises to promote the top scorers, then this is a case of government lying to the people. Since the City officials did not act in good faith, they breached their duty of truthfulness and fairness and should be held accountable for the harm they have caused to the firefighters who took the exam in good faith and would have been promoted were it not for the City's duplicity.

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Government's Role in Fixing the Economy

Posted by Mike on Saturday, May 16, 2009 12:20:59 AM
http://westernperspective.blogspot.com/
To fix the economy, step number one is to change the tax structure. This will mean revising the tax code to tax individual wealth rather than individual or corporate income, and abolishing the death tax. Taxes on individual wealth, or net worth, are justified because the wealthy benefit more from basic government services such as police and fire protection and health care.

My proposal is to tax individual wealth above the 90 percentile range at a rate of 95%, and above the 95 percentile range at a rate of 99%. There would be no tax on income which destroys the incentive to earn. Additional tax revenues would be generated through sales, excise and tariff taxes as needed pursuant to the Fair-Tax Plan championed by Alan Keyes.

Capitalism is, along with socialism, an outgrowth of the 18th Century French Revolution, and is inherently unjust because it reduces the human person to a mere instrument of production and consumption. Government's legitimate role is to promote justice by promoting entrepreneurship and giving tax credits to new businesses just starting up. Small businesses employ most of the American workforce outside of government including the military branches.

Distributivism is a Third Way of economic organization. The goal should be to promote independent, eco-friendly ways of producing things with the workers themselves having some ownership interest through tax incentives, and a more equitable corporate ownership to include the workers themselves. Just as in home equity, people act more responsibly when there is a more widely held ownership interest in businesses.

Subsidiarity must be respected, so that higher levels of government do not usurp the roles of lower levels, or infringe upon the responsibilities of business, community or family organizations.

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