Health Care Legal Cases

[Mark D.]

Constitutionality:
1) Dennis Kucinich partially referenced this. The Constitution says we've the right to life, liberty & the pursuit of happiness.
2) Uninsured people who are sick, under-insured/insured who are and are denied coverage are denied these inalienable rights.
3) Wouldn't that make for-profit insurance unconstitutional. Someone should challenge that. I mean to the S.C.O.T.U.S.

Hippocratic Oaths:
1) Doctors, and hospitals, have a 'Hippocratic Oath' to do no harm. By association, so should pharmacies, private or not.
2) When they deny chemo patients medicine based on ability to pay, they violate this oath, as they do serious harm.
3) When they take a patient who can't pay to court, and foreclose on their home, they do harm, and violate again.
4) Based on this, they should be forbidden to engage in medicine upon any such denial or collection activity.

I'm not joking. There's a legal case to be made in both of the above. I don't know much about law beyond what you can see here &
don't have resources or time to devote to it. Maybe another here can. Why not? 'Birthers' have taken less valid issues to court.

If any major precedent is set, any major headway made, in the above two cases, the only real option to fix the problem, which to
now has been the 'have-nots' problem, but would then be the 'have-mores' problem (so it will matter more) would be Single-Payer.

Make it viral. Why not. Next regressive you hear 'patriotically' referring to the Constitution to defend their Libertarian view.
Surprise them with these truths. We're in extreme times, and extreme measures like these certainly couldn't hurt the cause now.

[elleng]

1. 'Logically' you would make virtually everything we do,

and our economic and governmental system does, unconstitutional. Our system doesn't work that way.

Similar for Hippocratic Oath.

Sorry. Life isn't simple.

[Mark D.]

2. Of Course

Folks could try to apply that unreasonably to other things. But Judicial oversight would hopefully sift that stuff out. On these issues I mention, lives do depend on it.

[elleng]

4. Such matters would be highly unlikely to get anywhere in court.

To put it otherwise, it would be extremely difficult to come up with a suitable 'case or controversy,' to be justiciable. We are guaranteed the right to PURSUE happiness, and to live and be free.

Considering our economic system, NO COURT would entertain a suit based on the assertion you posit, that is, that 'uninsured people who are sick, under-insured/insured who are and are denied coverage are denied these inalienable rights.'

[Why Syzygy]

3. Need test cases.

Take it to the ACLU. If anyone can save us, it is the ACLU.

[barefootguy]

5. The right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness are NOT in the constitution...

They are in the Declaration of Independence, which does not carry any power of law. I agree that a single-payer system is the best solution, but if we're going to get there, we need to argue for it based on its merits, not based on some nonexistent constitutional right to it.

[Mark D.]

6. Really? No Preamble then?

Preamble:

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, ensure 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."

We can say it's 'just' the Preamble. But the preamble was written by the founders for a reason. In fact, some Federalists believed it was clear enough that no Bill of Rights were needed. We're not here to debate that aspect of it. So back to the program (nice try, it IS in The Constitution). Anyone have time to petition the ACLU?

I love to see them go after them. I'd love to see Billow Riley try to counter them as he liked to do, for being too 'Constitutional'.

[Why Syzygy]

7. I have time.

But no CASE. The ACLU web site has forms to complete. There's got to be a CASE, the plaintiff.