A basic right
The ongoing debate on health care has given rise to the assumption that health care is a privilege and not a right. I quote here the beginning of a document that summarizes the obligations of our government:
“We the People of the United States, in Order 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 to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
If we are to interpret this passage correctly, I would conclude that promoting the general welfare would include assuring access to health care as a part of the protections to our life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.
The founders of our nation foresaw the need to the need for us to redefine our interpretations of their words because they could not foresee the distance that progress would advance us. Health care is a basic right—the Founding Fathers provided for it.
PHIL MOTYKA
Southampton
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