Constitutional Welfare
Welfare n. 1. health, happiness, or prosperity; well-being. This is the true definition (Webster’s) of the word welfare, and it is contained in the preamble of the US Constitution: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, 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.”
In the meantime, our US Congress, and our new President, who are sworn to uphold the Constitution, are poised to pass a sweeping heath care bill that threatens the welfare of the citizens who they serve. Let’s examine the welfare definition:
Health is more important part of our well being. Once the US government comes into the health care arena, choices are made for us, about us and that will impact us. Supposedly for our good, but as we have seen with most US government programs, somehow the good intentions at the Congressional level get lost in the translation at the state and local level. Instead of looking to Washington, DC., we should be looking to Grand Junction, CO. This western Colorado community has worked for over thirty years to create a locally directly and quality focused health care delivery system that has higher quality care (that comparative regions) and lower costs (that average regions in the US). Ideas coming from the ground up with real people, organizations and health care professionals. Not the Washington DC top down approach that has been proven not to work.
Happiness is our personal responsibility. The government doesn’t owe it to us, except to provide for our national defense and secure the blessing of liberty. That compares the present health care legislation in the US Congress (now in the US Senate) that is attempting to secure nationalized health care with compulsory insurance, fees, fines and taxes. That will secure us socialized medicine, not the blessings of liberty. What responsibility does the Congress have for health care? To allow the individual to choose their doctor, their insurance, their level of care and make reasonable (not unilateral) provision for those unable to obtain decent health care.
Prosperity is the result of limited government, lower taxes, less government spending and the pursuit of happiness by the individual. It allows for the citizens to practice personal responsibility, not be wards of the state. The proposed health care bill expands government, increases taxes, expands government programs and spending, and restricts the choices of individual Americans. The United States has been known as the best place in the world to go to receive the best medical care. The Mayo Clinic, MD Anderson, Cleveland Clinic are not located in Cuba, Russia or China. They are located in the US for a reason. That may be lost in the headlong plunge into a government run health care system.
Choices in health care, choices in insurance, good choices in your lifestyle are part of our constitutionally protected welfare, or well-being. The Democrats, in their quest for a socialized and fair practice of medicine and health care delivery have created legislation that threatens the very fabric of our free society. A while 1,000 pages of hastily written legislation may be passed in some form by the US Senate, the 50 plus words in the preamble of the US Constitution stand as a beacon of hope and freedom. Do Americans want the 1,000 model of beauracracy and government control, or do we prefer the way of liberty and true welfare?
© 2009, Jasper Welch, Four Corners Media, www.jasperwelch.org
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