Special Commentary Health Care: A Governmental Duty

Abstract

Healthcare as a Governmental Duty.  For years, healthcare in the United States has been debated as a basic right supported by the social arguments of need and justice, but with little agreement.^[1]  However, in the opinion of this writer, when a fundamental service such as healthcare is no longer readily accessible by a large segment of the general population it will become a prime duty of government to provide that service.  Examples of other recognized prime duties include those powers specifically granted to the Federal government under the Constitution, Article I, Section 8, such as the power to declare war, raise and support armies, regulate interstate commerce and provide postal services and roads.  Healthcare has become one of the most needed, least understood, complex, opaque, and expensive services that an individual citizen faces.  One might liken today's healthcare to a world of unregulated interstate commerce where tariffs are levied on goods crossing each border and where each state regulates the health insurance within its borders, thus limiting the size of risk pools and increasing the costs of insurance^[2] just as was provided by the McCarran-Ferguson Act (1945)^[3].

[1] ProCon.org, Background of the Issue, (Aug. 6, 2016) https://healthcare.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=006590

[2] Richard Cauchi, "Allowing Purchases of Out-of-State Health Insurance, NCSL Health Program (June 1,2018) http://www.ncsl.org/research/health/out-of-state-health-insurance-purchases.aspx

[3] 15 U.S.C. § 6701. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/6701