Rep Kucinich: "Healthcare is a Civil Right!"

At a press conference, on Capitol Hill, on May 13, 2009, Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (D-OH) spoke out strongly for a single payer healthcare system. He said: "Healthcare is a Civil Right!" The event was organized by the California Nurses Assoc/NNOC. In 2008, Rep. Kucinich ran for president in the Democratic Primary. Of all the candidates, he was the strongest in opposing the immoral and illegal Iraq War. For background, see: http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/ and http://kucinich.house.gov/
Healthcare activists are supporting HR 676 and S 703, now pending before the U.S. Congress. For background and any updates, see: http://www.healthcare-now.org and
http://singlepayeraction.org and http://md.pnhp.org and
http://www.prosperityagenda.us/ and http://freshaircleanpolitics.net and http://www.calnurses.org/
The press conference was held in Room 2203 of the Rayburn Office Building.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich
• Healthcare
• Nurses
• HR 676
• California
• NNOC
• Civil
• Right
• William Hughes
• 703

[ricadrew]

Fuck this insanity! How can anything be a right when somebody else is suppose to pay for it?

I am not responsible for securing your so called rights, pay for your own, I have enough problems providing for my own family you lazy bastards!!

[blaziermissy]

@abaddon5 You're born with evolutionary roots of behavior that resemble morality in regard to how we treat each other because it's conducive to our survival. Healthcare, in a civilized system, should be a right, not predetermined by your wealth or some contrived notion of social class.

[blaziermissy]

@mjt1517 Our forefathers did not foresee that we'd become a facist corporatacracy through collusion and greed either. Adams and Locke didn't ever dream we'd have Wall Street, making money off of money either. This is not the "free market enterprise" they talked about.

[carolynmerkle1964]

Vote "NO" for health care law that increase cost and we become like Canada & UK where if you need health care you have to go to US. oops.. If this law is passed US care will be just like the Canada & UK.... Where will we go... where will the Canadians & UK go to get health care.

[mjt1517]

Also, the word "unalienable" means something that cannot be given or taken away. The men who formed our great nation went to great pains to express the idea that it is not the government that grants to us our rights. You should embrace their ideas...they are liberating and potent.

[mjt1517]

The founders declared these rights were given by Deity. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that theyare endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights..." It really doesn't matter if you believe in a deity...you're living in a nation that was formed under this belief and is so written into its founding documents. That is the operating principle we were formed under, and that is the operating principle we continue under to this day.

[abaddon5]

If you're born with rights, then that means that they were given. Does nature grant these rights? No. Rights are either given to us by some deity or by a government.

[mjt1517]

If you're born with them, they are unalienable. (In other words, no matter what the government says about them, they can' t take them away.) And I didn't go backwards. What I said they gave us was a philosophical stance. The rights are ours by birth. The philosophical stance is the framework of thought we rally around in order to discuss these ideas. What you're proposing enables tyrannical government to cut off your individual liberty. And that's something the founders wanted to prevent.

[abaddon5]

You are born with CERTAIN rights, but they can be given or taken away. Before, we had the right to own slaves. Now we don't. Plus, you just went backwards on what you said before. The government gives us rights,

[mjt1517]

Well, abaddon, whether you're religious or not, if you're a citizen of the United States, you're part of a nation that believes we were born with rights. So it doesn't really matter if you believe this or not, that's how it is in the US. That is the philosophical stance our founders gave us, and if you're not willing to operate under those ideas, then you've completely missed the point of those exalted men and the nation they gave us.