Issue Position: Healthcare Must Be Voluntary

Issue Position

While Healthcare is important to each and every person, it is not a right. Neither is food, water, or shelter. Furthermore, we inherit our rights from our Creator, not from government. When the framers of the Constitution affirmed through the 5th Amendment the natural rights to "Life, Liberty, and Property," they made sure that each and every American would be allowed to pursue these necessities without interference by their fellow man or by government overseers. They guaranteed us freedom from government by restricting what government could do to us. When the government gets into the business of not only providing services, but also of guaranteeing outcomes, it wrongfully obligates itself to pick "winners and losers." In the name of equality, it takes from those who have in order to give to those who have not. It would be highly immoral for government to engage in plunder against some of its citizens, even on behalf of the needy. When government forces us to be charitable, good people cannot be good on their own initiative. The role of charity and churches are to provide for the needy, and government is neither charity nor church. Therefore when government mandates that every citizen must buy an approved healthcare plan, it violates the conscience of the individual. The presumed reason for this coercion is that if everyone buys healthcare, the costs for each individual will be reduced. However, government imposes upon every citizen the additional responsibility of paying for millions of people who cannot or would not pay on their own. When healthcare costs become too great for the patient to bear, that is the time for individuals to be generous--it is not time for government to become a charity by increasing the national (public) debt. We have already witnessed the disastrous impact of socialist programs such as Medicare and Social Security, which demand that everyone participate for the benefit of the few who are recipients. Government healthcare will seek to expand these failed policies to give benefits to everyone. The obligations of these programs far exceed our national debt, which has never been paid down and is currently approaching $15 trillion. These numbers reflect a poor economic policy and the refusal of our elected officials to be good stewards of the People's money. Additionally, the individual mandate will provide an unfair benefit to those healthcare corporations and insurance providers who are in league with government bureaucrats, ensuring a captive clientele that has nowhere else to go for healthcare because government will guarantee its agents a monopoly. We have already seen our government (under Presidents Bush and Obama) play favorites with big banks and auto companies that deserved to go out of business. If we allow the politicians to rob the People of the United States in order to help their biggest campaign contributors and business partners, we will be lining the pockets of the rich at the expense of the poor and middle-class, thereby increasing our economic woes. The primary advantage of free-market capitalism is that if you dislike a product, a service, or the company that produces it, you have the freedom to not buy their goods or even to send your business to their competitors. If we give government the power to forcefully mandate that every citizen buy healthcare, the profits will go to the friends of the politicians, and our ability to choose where our money goes will be destroyed. The Bill of Rights protects us from this type of abuse by the government: the 9th Amendment guarantees that We the People have all rights that are not outlined in the Constitution, and the 10th Amendment declares that all powers not explicitly given to the federal government are retained by the States, and those not explicitly given to the States are retained by the People. Our rights belong to us first, and we grant certain powers to government that are necessary for an efficient administration of our country, our States, and our neighborhoods. As rulers of these United States, We the People must assert our right not to be forced by our servants in government to buy Healthcare against our will. It is up to us and us alone to achieve justice. We must send a Clear message to the President and Congress that: Healthcare must be Voluntary!

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