Life,Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness: why the current US healthcare system is unconstitutional,illegal and failing the founding doctrines

When Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, there were several versions before the familiar, final one. However, one phrase was included in them all:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men. ¹

This phrase is the primary reason given for the colonies to break British rule. Not only are these rights stated as the reason for the revolutionary war, but the Declaration specifically states the sole reason for the creation of a government is to ensure these rights are upheld. In other words, these rights are the core concepts behind the United States, and yet when it comes to healthcare, these concepts are not applied to the American citizen. ²

Each year the lack of proper health insurance kills more than 45,000 citizens. ³ They are effectively denied their unalienable right to life. Additionally, the Declaration clearly states it is the government’s job to ‘secure these rights’. If the US Government does not ensure that all American citizens are able to receive proper medical care, it is in contradiction to the very Declaration upon which it was formed.

Each year, tens of thousands of citizens are virtually imprisoned in their homes because health insurance will not cover medication, durable medical equipment or medical treatments that would enable them to be self-sufficient. They are deprived of their liberty, and the system is, again, in direct violation of this country’s founding doctrine.

As for pursuing happiness, it would be reasonable to suggest those deprived of health and liberty are unable to effectively pursue happiness. Thus, the lack of appropriate, available, health coverage and care violates all of the most important rights guaranteed by the Founding Fathers under the US Declaration of Independence.

The violations do not stop at the Declaration of Independence, but extend to the Constitution of the United States as well.

In 1787, the US Constitution was written and ratified. The Preamble, generally considered the heart of the document and the country’s most important set of legal guidelines, states

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. ⁴

What makes this important is the time in which the document was made. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, in the 18th century, the word ‘welfare’ was specifically used in relation to the physical health of a person or group. In addition, the Oxford English Dictionary states the modern idea of financial welfare and sociological welfare did not exist until the early 1900s. ⁵

Therefore, when the founders of the USA used the term ‘promote the general welfare’, that intrinsically contained the concept of health and healthcare for all citizens. To deny healthcare is in direct opposition to both the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution.

Currently, there are 825,368 GoFundMe campaigns trying to raise money for patients who cannot afford cancer treatments. ⁶ These campaigns include members of every race, religion, ethnicity and gender. In the 21st century, in arguably the richest country in the world, it is criminal that citizens must rely on fundraising to pay for life-saving treatments.

Every person who dies this year due to lack of healthcare has been denied their right to life, not because of their disease, but because their government has deemed them unworthy of being saved. The government must be held liable.

A 2008 study by Harvard medical school stated 45,000 working, adult Americans died the previous year due to lack of insurance coverage. ³ Additionally, uninsured adults were 40% more likely to die than the insured. Statistically, this means the ongoing lack of health coverage in the United States kills more American citizens than kidney disease.

A study out of Johns Hopkins estimated 17,000 children die each year due to lack of insurance. ⁷ How is it that the United States can expound the right to life while tens of thousands die in the streets due to a lack of healthcare? It is unconscionable and unacceptable. It flies in the face of the nation’s founding guidelines.

We, as Americans, need to focus on what it means to be Americans. We need to demand better of our leaders and our country in caring for the sick. The National Institutes of Health declared, ‘The United States stands alone among industrialized nations in not providing health coverage to all of its citizens’. ⁸ How can we possibly find this acceptable?

We have some of the best hospitals and health professionals in the world. They are masters of their arts wielding medicine and scalpel with almost magical skill. But like a magician’s audience, many of our citizens are mere spectators, wishing to be part of the act. Wishing to be part of the magic but only able to watch.

Nobody should die because they have no coverage. No parent should choose between feeding a child and getting medicine for that child. No American citizen should be denied their unalienable rights of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness by the very government charged with ensuring those rights are protected.

It is the duty of the federal government to ensure the safety and treatment of all citizens. To do otherwise is an act of dehumanisation, stating the individual is less of a person due to lack of insurance. It is a statement that the government does not find that person worthy of living.

It is murder by omission.

Failure to have full and free healthcare and prescription care for all citizens is not only against the founding concepts laid out in our Declaration of Independence and solidified in the Constitution, it is simply un-American.