What to do?Īlexis de Tocqueville, the Frenchman who spent months studying America in the 19th century, wrote this about America's charitable spirit: "Americans group together to hold fetes, found seminaries, build inns, construct churches, distribute books, dispatch missionaries to the antipodes. But what about states that don't have high-risk pools? And even in states that do, some people will not be able to afford it, even at a reduced and subsidized price. Before Obamacare, 35 states had "high-risk pools" so that their residents with pre-existing illnesses could get non-group health insurance. This brings us back to the issue of those with pre-existing illnesses. I find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution." In 1887, President Cleveland vetoed a bill to send money to drought-stricken counties in Texas, saying: "I feel obliged to withhold my approval of the plan to indulge in benevolent and charitable sentiment through the appropriation of public funds. President Pierce, in 1854, vetoed a bill meant to help the mentally ill, saying, "I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for public charity." To approve such spending, he said, "would be contrary to the letter and the spirit of the Constitution and subversive to the whole theory upon which the Union of these States is founded." To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators." Not so, said Madison: "With respect to the words 'general welfare,' I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers (enumerated in the Constitution) connected with them. Some argued that the Constitution allows for benevolent spending under the general-welfare clause. When did health insurance become a right?ĭid the Founding Fathers, under Article I, Section 8, grant the federal government the power and duty to ensure "universal health care coverage"? The answer is no, and there are many historical examples that prove it. So the question now simply becomes who pays and how much.
#Obama spent money on obamacare congress had not authorized free#
But by campaigning to "repeal and replace" Obamacare, by refusing to make the case that free markets beat government-controlled health care, they've done just that.
Free markets are the best way to improve quality, accessibility and affordability. That's a lot for the supposedly limited-government party to buy into.
But by agreeing with Obama on the issue of pre-existing illnesses, by promising to replace Obamacare "with something better," Republicans are making a massive concession: That access to health care insurance should be guaranteed by the federal government, and that denying people coverage based on their health history is unfair and should be prevented by law. And President Donald Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan insist that those with pre-existing conditions will be covered. When it comes to repealing and replacing Obamacare, defenders of President Barack Obama's signature domestic law constantly ask, "What about those with pre-existing illnesses?"Īfter all, the most popular feature of Obamacare is that it prohibits insurance companies from denying coverage because an applicant has a pre-existing illness.
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