To the editor:

Currently, there is an assertion in the news and among many that healthcare is a “right” — that even though not specifically spelled out in the Constitution, it is nevertheless implied.

Even a casual glance at the Constitution’s Bill of Rights forces you to conclude that every right is a limitation or a prohibition imposed by the people upon government that requires the government to behave or not behave in a certain way toward the individual.

So a right is the guarantee of an individual’s freedom from government imposition on such things as the exercise of religion and conscience, free speech, self- defense, property, assembly and petition. On that list there is nothing that must be given to you by others, rather, it is a list of guaranteed freedoms, conferred at birth to the individual, upon which the government cannot infringe.

Because a right is an individual’s protection from government imposition, and any establishment of a healthcare system paid for by taxes would create a government imposition on the individual, government-run healthcare must be defined as an anti-freedom non-right, i.e., a government compulsion — the exact opposite of a right.

Healthcare is not a right; it is more properly labeled a good, and in my opinion not a very good good as it commits my children and legions of children unborn to trillions of dollars of debt and virtual state slavery.

If the Bill of Rights ever addressed such a thing as a “Healthcare Right” it would be a prohibition worded like this:

Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of healthcare or the free exercise thereof for the individual to pursue such healthcare.

David F. Hiestand

Langley