The Unconstitutionality of Government Healthcare

Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution delineates what the Congress of the United States can do in a legal sense. No where in this area, or in any area of the Constitution is health care mentioned as a right.

However, Article 1, Section 8.1 of the Constitution of the United States reads as follows:

"The Congress shall have the power... to provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States...."

This clause known as the general welfare clause, is the clause that the leftist in Washington hang their hat on whenever they feel the need to pass laws that by nature are unconstitutional. However, James Madison, in writing The Federalist #41, said the following:

"It has been urged and echoed, that the power 'to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States,' amounts to an unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the common defense or general welfare."

Madison goes on to say that that very idea that congress can legislate whatever it wants is a "misconstruction" that:

"Had no other enumeration or definition of the powers of the Congress been found in the Constitution, than the general expressions just cited, the authors of the objection might have had some color for it; though it would have been difficult to find a reason for so awkward a form of describing an authority to legislate in all possible cases."

The "no other enumeration or definition of powers of Congress" Madison was writing about is the rest of Article 1, Section 8, which tells us exactly what the Congress can do. There was no need to put into the constitution what the Congress couldn't do, all that needed to be present was what it could do, every thing else was to be off limits to the Congress.

Further explaining himself Madison, defends his idea by stating:

"Nothing is more natural nor common than first to use a general phrase, and then to explain and qualify it by a recital of particulars."

So, he is saying it is a natural thing to make a general statement and then to further define it by adding specifics. Which means that if anything falls outside of those specifics, that it should not be considered part of the broader, previously made statement.

The two points to consider are that:

1. The constitution does not specifically allow the Congress to legislate health care.
2. Just because it isn't an enumerated power granted to Congress by the constitution does not mean that Congress can legislate healthcare under the general welfare clause.
   

So how does one then legally legislate health care? This is a good question to be asking your representatives in the House of Representatives and the Senators in Washington D.C. Rasmussen polls suggest a majority of Americans do not want anything to do with the House's or Senate's version of healthcare reform. Why don't they listen to us? Why do they insist on fundamentally changing the best heathcare system in the world?

Because our president told us:

And that my friends is EXACTLY what they intend to do, unless we as Americans unite against these socialist that are now in power and vote them out of office starting in November 2010, and cleaning up the rest of the mess in November 2012.