Kucinich: A New Movement: Health Care as a Civil Right (Art 1,Sec 8:to promote the general welfare)

[mod mom]

New email from Dennis Kucinich:

A New Movement: Health Care as a Civil Right

Dear Friends,

There is only one true health care public option: Single payer. It covers everyone, all basic health care needs, with doctor of choice. No more premiums, co-pays or deductibles. All health care assets in America would become not-for-profit. The bill already exists. It is HR 676. Congressman John Conyers and I wrote the bill. Our bill has the support of 85 co-sponsors in the House. And it is backed by a growing national movement of labor, doctors, and nurses. The movement needs you. Please join me for tomorrow’s national conference call at 10:00pm EDT. Please call toll-free 1-800-230-1096.

The hour has arrived to begin anew the Civil Rights Movement, this time for Health Care for All. I am calling upon you to become a force in this movement. Go to Health Care as A Civil Right at Kucinich.us to learn how you can circulate a single-payer petition and organize in your community. Please help fund this effort. Go to Kucinich.us now, contribute.

The Preamble to the United States Constitution and Article One, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution both describe an originating purpose of our United States: to promote the general welfare. Health care is a legitimate function of our government. Health care is a basic right in a Democratic society. It is no more a privilege based on ability to pay than is the right to vote, which was once accorded only to property owners.

Health care is also a moral imperative. Forty seven million Americans are uninsured. Fifty million Americans are underinsured. People are losing their homes, their jobs, their life’s savings, their retirement security and their financial health because they cannot pay medical bills, and despite this calamity Washington looks another way. We must not avert our eyes to this human suffering and this economic injustice.

Let’s prepare a response which Washington will long remember as the time when the people reclaimed their government from the insurance and pharmaceutical companies. Join us. Contribute. Together, we can initiate an action plan to intervene and provide health care for all.

A National Health Care for All Conference Call from Washington, DC, at 10 pm EDT, Thursday, September 10th at 1-800-230-1096. Join us, so that we can discuss our new beginning and ways in which we can all help. Pre-registration is necessary in order to reserve sufficient phone lines. Please RSVP here. When you call in and the operator asks, "what conference call?" tell the operator, "Health Care for All."
On-line petition. Please contact your lists, your family and friends. Please sign the petition for a single payer system. I will deliver the petitions directly to your Congressperson.
Petition to download, print and circulate among friends and neighbors - including an instruction sheet.
Health Care Meet-Ups. Coming Thursday September 10 2009.

Tell A Friend. Every email forwarded will make a difference? Please use the "Forward Email" link below to circulate up to 5 emails at a time to your friends.
I need your help to initiate this action. If you believe, as I do, that we can and must begin a new long-term state-by-state grassroots effort to create a single-payer, not-for-profit health care system, please contribute now at Kucinich.us
Thank you.

Sincerely.

[Echo In Light]

1. Rec

[panader0]

2. "It is no more a privilege based on ability to pay than is the right to vote."

Amen. The best thing I've read on the health care debate yet.
Rec'd

[Laelth]

3. I am very fond and generally supportive of Representative Kucinich.

But he's wrong on this. Despite the Preamble (which is not bending law), the Federal Government can not legislate "for the general welfare." The Commerce Clause of Article I is used to legislate in this way. We have to argue that the law in question (or the regulated practice) affects "commerce between the states" in order for such a Federal law to be constitutional.

Here, I think a good case can be made that health care affects "commerce between the states," but the Federal Government is not authorized, in truth, to enact laws that "promote the general welfare." Police powers (promoting the general welfare) are reserved explicitly to the States.

:dem:

-Laelth

[windoe]

4. I guess I'm just ignorant of all the legalese.

We the People of the United States, in order for form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure DOMESTIC TRANQUILITY, provide for the common defence, promote THE GENERAL WELFARE, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish the Constitution for the United States of America.

[mod mom]

5. Kucinich responds to Obama Speech (video):

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/9/10/779697/-Kucinich-Responds-To-Obamas-Address-To-Congress