Pelosi Says Health Care a Right

On Thursday, June 7, 2012, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said, “Here’s the thing: the American Affordable Care Act [ObamaCare] stands there with Social Security, Medicare, health care for all Americans as a right, not a privilege.” She actually said that! But there is just one small problem with her statement – nowhere in the US Constitution is “health care” mentioned.

She made her statement in response to response to a CBS News/New York Times poll that showed 41 percent of Americans want the Supreme Court to overturn the law in its entirety.

Obviously Nancy Pelosi, being the good and obedient lap dog that she is, had to say that health care is a right. This is, after all, the same woman who said, “Are you serious?” when asked, “Madam Speaker, where specifically does the Constitution grant Congress the authority to enact an individual health insurance mandate?” And said regarding ObamaCare, “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.”

This is the same Nancy Pelosi who, in July, 2011, said to Obama that House Democrats won’t back a budget deal that cuts Social Security and Medicare. Social Security is now operating in the red. Its deficits will balloon as more baby boomers retire. And we all know about the “special bonds” in the Social Security trust fund.

Social Security and Medicare beneficiaries receive far more in benefits than they paid in. The Urban Institute calculates that an average-wage, two-earner couple retiring in 2010 will get $906,000 in lifetime benefits under Social Security and Medicare after paying in $704,000. The same couple retiring in 2030 will receive $1.226 million and will have paid in $971,000.

Is this where we are headed with respect to health care? The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), the legislation that created ObamaCare, is failing to make healthcare affordable. It is, in fact, making health care even more expensive than it was before.

If health care is a right, does that mean the government has the “right” to tell citizens how to spend money, as with the health insurance purchase mandate? Does it have the “right” to persecute religions, as with telling the Catholic Church that it must provide free contraception and abortifacients? And does it have the “right” to run Ponzi schemes like Social Security?

Nancy Pelosi knows the US Constitution. I know this because she said so. So I guess I’ll just keep looking for the articles or sections or amendments that say Social Security, Medicare, and health care are rights. I guess her copy of the US Constitution is different from mine.

But that’s just my opinion.

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