Constitution doesn't say feds can offer health care

Recently a writer tried to make the case that federal government's involvement in health care is somehow constitutional. The level of ignorance regarding the Constitution can only be attributed to an educational system that seeks to obfuscate its true meaning lest some child past the Age of Reason should say, "Well then, where does the Constitution say the federal government can provide education?"

Enter a letter that appeared in the Sept. 17 Herald which said: "Obviously they (opposed to Obamacare) have not read it (the constitution): There is no prohibition of the government providing health care. If the founding fathers were considering such a clause, they never included it in the final product. Furthermore, Medicare has been in effect for over 40 years. It has always been Constitutional."

Mr. VandeMotter has it exactly backward. The Constitution lists exactly what the government may do - not the other way around. If the authority is not expressly given to the government, then they don't have it. These are called Enumerated Powers.

To further bind the hands of government, the founding fathers provided a Bill of Rights whose preamble states that its purpose is to prevent "misconstruction." In today's vernacular: it means what it says and says what it means.

Article 10 states, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited it by the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

In other words, if we the people did not expressly give the federal government the authority to do something, then it doesn't have that authority. Show me the section of the Constitution that expressly states the government may get involved in health care.

Jeff Lonigro

St. Charles