Rights, Rights and more Rights

We talk  a great deal in our country about rights and well we should. One of the crucial elments of our Constitution is the Bill of Rights without which some states refused to even ratify the document in the first place. ( North Carolina for one).

There is freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press amon others. But of late, I have been reading about other rights  that might not have been on the founders’ radar screens. The one that grabbed m  attention today was proclaimed by the Senator from Nevada, Majority Leader Harry Reid. He made his comments in the aftermath of the Democrats triumphal march to victory in the passing of Obamacare. Don’t know if Sherman’s march through Georgia is an appropriate analogy, but for now, it shall suffice. The Dems have been described as jubilant over their victory as if they had won the World Series or Super Bowl.

The  Senator  made a statement in the aftermath of the Democratic victory that health insurance  was a right and it was an achievemnet  of great worth. I began wondering, is health care a right for all Americans ad is it our governmwent’;s duty to provide such? I am not so sure that either of those statements is accurate. For most of my working career, I have had health care trough my employer. There  was a period of time when I did not and could not afford it out-of-pocket. We were quite fortunate in not requiring major medical attention during this time, although there was a good bit that we  had to pay. I do not recall thinking that someone, somewhere owed me health insurance. And, I still don’t.

I know that health insurance is important, vitally important in people’s lives. But, a right, a government provided, guaranteed right? No, Senator, it is not. One consolation, at least, Reid did not call it  a God-given  right as Reverend Carlton W Veazey recently described abortion.