Kucinich: A New Movement: Health Care as a Civil Right

[G_j]

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. Dennis

***************


A PETITION ESTABLISHING
HEALTH CARE AS A CIVIL RIGHT

Whereas, Universal Health Care was proposed by President Teddy Roosevelt in 1912; and

Whereas today, nearly 100 years later, 47 million Americans are uninsured and another 50 million are underinsured bringing great social and economic harm to the American family; and

Whereas, HR 676, authored by Congressmen John Conyers and Dennis Kucinich provides for Medicare for All, a universal, single payer, not-for-profit health care system which means the end of premiums, copays and deductibles; and

Whereas we are already paying for a universal standard of care but are not getting it because one of every three dollars in the health care system goes to the activities of the for-profit insurance system; and

Whereas HR676 firmly establishes health care as a Civil Right, consistent with the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States and Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution which defines a purpose of government "to promote the General Welfare," now therefore,

I HEREBY EXPRESS MY STRONG SUPPORT FOR HR676, SINGLE PAYER HEALTH CARE, AND THE PRINCIPLES OF ECONOMIC JUSTICE FOR WHICH IT STANDS:

http://healthcare.kucinich.us/petition/

[Nederland]

1. I guess I'll give up

I'm tired of explaining that rights are things you have until they are taken away from you, not things that you don't have until they are given to you.

[NYC_SKP]

3. +1

At least I think I agree, I like the way you frame the difference.

Where I find government failure is not in assuring that everyone have health care, but in failing to protect us from corporate abuse.

Can it be argued that in being abused by a business we are having basic rights violated?

[Nederland]

5. Perhaps

At the very least, I think people should have a right to know how much services cost upfront, and the doctor's history of success.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. It's a moral issue

Do we, as a country, give the right of health care to all our citizens or simply let the poor die? You know, so many of the right wing say they are "Christian", and yet they don't follow the teacings of Jesus, who said, "Whatsoever you do to the least of these you do unto Me."

[G_j]

4. yes, if being poor means you can die for lack of health care

if people don't think health care is a right, then I suppose. adversely, it is the "right" of a poor person to die without health care.
:-(

[Laelth]

6. I greatly admire and generally support Representative Kucinich.

But he's wrong on this. Despite the Preamble (which is not binding 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.

All the same, I would support a Constitutional Amendment that made health care a right and that explicitly gave the Federal Government the right to pass laws in this area.

:dem:

-Laelth

[G_j]

7. --